The L.A. Musical History Tour
Janis Joplin death site
Landmark Hotel (now Highland Gardens)
7047 Franklin, Hollywood
Once Janis Joplin took the stage at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 she
was on a one-
way rocket to the top -- only to die alone, at age twenty-seven, in room
105 of this
Hollywood hotel from an overdose of heroin.
A lot has been written about the pain Joplin endured. Roundly rejected in
her hometown of
Port Arthur, Texas -- she was voted "Ugliest Man on Campus" in
a college poll -- in 1966 she
fled to San Francisco to seek a new life, and found it with the band Big
Brother and the
Holding Company. They grew with San Francisco's burgeoning music scene,
and she
was catapulted to the top, becoming the single most celebrated singer of
that town and that
era.
Wealth, fame, and world acclaim followed, yet she remained the wild, sad,
hippie girl with
a pint of Southern Comfort always close at hand.
Her death here on October 3, 1970 -- from and overdose of pure heroin reportedly
mistaken
for diluted -- was a shock to fans throughout the world. Her latest album,
Pearl (1971), had
shown a new maturity that seemed to promise even better days.
"Me and Bobby McGee" from that album was her first number one
hit, averring,
"freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."