Janis Joplins's Impact On The Music Industry

In 1943, a sheltered, young, white, middle-class girl was born in a heavily segregated state down South with a population which supported guns and the death penalty, namely Texas. The environment in Janis Joplins’ homestate at the time of her childhood years was very hostile and unethical by today’s standards, although at the time, it was simply a norm protected by law. Racial tensions fueled by extreme Christian teachings, all tied together with a bow on top – rigid gender roles. This was the place Janis called home for several years before she left to go to California with the hopes of becoming a Blues recording artist. Little did she know, the impact she would have on the entertainment industry as a whole would be studied and written about

Although she had made friends and contributed to her community by painting campaign and event posters. In a 1969 interview with the New York Times, she recalls: “I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I thought, and I didn’t hate [n*****s]. There was nobody like me in Port Arthur.” Up until that point, although she had tuned in to local radio stations just like every other teenager at the time, the music she was exposed to did not excite her. She would hear female singers that seemed “shallow” and lacking a captivating character. Joplin claimed that she had wanted to become a blues singer ever since Grant Lyons, a high-school friend of hers, had loaned her records by Smith and Leadbelly. This sparked the (subconscious) idea of rebellion in

She was openly promiscuous, and believed in a sexuality that transcended gender and labels. The more socially acceptable definition of the sexy woman was one who is pursued by the man, but who never initiates a pursuit herself. Janis Joplin conducted herself as both the hunter and the hunted. Joplin was, in modern terms, a bisexual, but resented the media’s efforts to label her sexuality. “What’s the big deal about defining yourself as this or that?” she asks, “just be it.” Joplin’s sexual ambiguity, her refusal to participate in the comfortable labeling system, can be considered as the epitome of sexual liberation. Joplin was not only liberated from the rules for women by presenting herself as comfortable with free love as her male counterparts, but she is liberated from the rules for society by refusing to conform to a socially mandated system of categories. Sexual liberation did not come easily for Joplin; she struggled with the relationship between her free sexuality and her desire for romantic love. Her lyrics mourn over her loneliness an desperation with lyrics like “And when she gets lonely, she's thinking 'bout her man, / She knows he's taking her for granted” (“A Woman Left Lonely”), Why, I need a man to love / I gotta find him, I gotta have him like the air