American singer-songwriter Janis Joplin was BOTD in 1943. Born in Port Arthur, Texas, she began performing blues and folk music in high school, imitating her heroes Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. She studied briefly at the University of Texas before hitchhiking to San Francisco, where she immersed herself in the emerging counterculture. After almost dying from drug-related malnutrition, she returned to music, joining psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1966. She dazzled audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, combining a powerful contralto voice with electric stage presence, becoming an overnight celebrity. Her band’s second album Cheap Thrills included successful covers of Piece of My Heart, Me and Bobby McGee and Summertime. Her brief ascent to fame ended in 1970 when she died of a heroin overdose, aged 27. A posthumous album, Pearl, released three months after her death, became an international bestseller, notable for her witty and rueful version of (Oh Lord, Won’t You Buy Me a) Mercedes Benz. Joplin had relationships with men and women throughout her life, most of which ended over conflicts about her drug use. Shortly before her death, Joplin contributed to the costs of a gravestone for Bessie Smith, erected at Smith’s previously unmarked grave. The 1979 film The Rose, starring Bette Midler as a bisexual rock singer struggling with drug addiction, was inspired by Joplin’s life and work.