She played some gigs, including a side-stage performance at the 1963 Monterey Folk Festival-but her career didn't gain much traction. But this stint out west, like her first, proved to be unsuccessful, as Joplin struggled to make it as a singer in the Bay Area. In January 1963, Joplin ditched school to check out the emerging music scene in San Francisco with friend Chet Helms. She was unlike any other white female vocalist at the time (folk icons like Joan Baez and Judy Collins were known for their gentle sound). With her forceful, gutsy singing style, Joplin amazed many audience members. In Austin, Joplin began performing at folksings-casual musical gatherings where anyone can perform-on campus and at Threadgill's, a gas station turned bar, with the Waller Creek Boys, a musical trio with whom she was friends. In the summer of 1962, Joplin fled to the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied art. This first effort to break away from wasn't a success, however, and Joplin thus returned to Port Arthur for a time. She went on to attend Port Arthur College, where she took some secretarial courses, before moving to Los Angeles in the summer of 1961. At the end of her first semester at Lamar, Joplin left the school. There, she devoted more time to hanging out and drinking with friends than to her studies. Joplin eventually developed a group of guy friends who shared her interest in music and the Beat Generation, which rejected the standard norms and emphasized creative expression (Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were two of the Beat movement's leading figures).Īfter graduating from high school, Joplin enrolled at Lamar State College of Technology in the neighboring town of Beaumont, Texas. She was called a 'pig' by some, while others said that she was sexually promiscuous. Joplin, who liked to stand out from the crowd, became the target of some teasing as well as a popular subject in the school's rumor mill. She eschewed the popular girls' fashions of the late 1950s, often choosing to wear men's shirts and tights, or short skirts. She got acne and gained some weight.Īt Thomas Jefferson High School, Joplin began to rebel. Joplin was a good student and fairly popular until around the age of 14 when some side effects of puberty started to kick in. Four years later, her brother, Michael, arrived. She was an only child until the age of six, when her sister, Laura, was born. Developing a love for music at an early age, Joplin sang in her church choir as a child and showed some promise as a performer.

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