Janis Joplin made no mystery out of what inspired her to find her voice.
According to a 1969 interview with Hit Parader magazine, Joplin plainly credited the blues with helping her find her sound.
“Back in Port Arthur, I’d heard some Lead Belly records, and, well, if the blues syndrome is true, I guess it’s true about me… So I began listening to blues and folk music. I bought Bessie Smith and Odetta records, and one night, I was at this party, and I did an imitation of Odetta. I’d never sung before, and I came out with this huge voice.”
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.
Related: 1981 Timeless Anthem Inspired by Janis Joplin Became One of Rock’s First No. 1 Hits
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.
In 1937, Smith was in a car accident so severe that it nearly severed her arm from her body. Those final moments are shrouded in mystery, with reports claiming authorities allowed Smith to bleed out while tending to white passengers who had mere bumps and scrapes, while others say she bled out while ambulances were trying to find a hospital that would treat a Black woman. Most historians now agree that Smith made it to the hospital, but by the time she got there, her injuries were so bad that she had no chance of making it. All three versions likely have some truth to them. Her family reportedly could not afford a headstone for her.
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.
Joplin died weeks later on October 4, 1970, at the age of 27, from a heroin overdose.
Smith's headstone can be visited at Mount Lawn Cemetery in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia.
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