According to a 1969 interview with Hit Parader magazine, Joplin plainly credited the blues with helping her find her sound.
A simple fact is that without the blues movement, there would be no rock and roll. The artists you know and love, from Eric Clapton to Led Zeppelin, took the musical framework and deeply rooted lyricism and transformed them into the loud, electric genre we know today. Bluntly, racism is why the blues do not get the credit they deserve in rock's history, which the mainstream likes to credit Elvis Presley for "inventing." Even if Presley did "invent" rock and roll, he inherited it from the local blues he grew up with.
Who Is Bessie Smith and Why Did Janis Joplin Honor Her?
Smith's contribution to music is undeniable. Eventually known as the "Empress of the Blues," Smith made a name for herself on the Black vaudeville stage. It wasn't until 1923 that Smith signed with Columbia Records, and her first recording, “Downhearted Blues," catapulted her to fame. In fact, it made her the highest-earning Black entertainer of her time. She was unapologetically herself, proud of her Black heritage, openly bisexual, and fearless with her career choices.
When Joplin found out that Smith was resting in an unmarked grave, she quietly purchased a headstone for her alongside Juanita Green on August 8, 1970. The epitaph read: “The Greatest Blues Singer in the World Will Never Stop Singing—Bessie Smith‐1895‐1937,” which was penned by jazz historian John Hammond.
Smith's headstone can be visited at Mount Lawn Cemetery in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia.
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