Janis Lyn Joplin was born at St. Mary's Hospital in the oil-refining town of Port Arthur, Texas, near the border with Louisiana. Her father was a cannery worker and her mother was registrar for a business college. As an overweight teenager she was a folk-music devotee (especially Odetta, Leadbelly and Bessie Smith). After graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School she attended Lamar State College and the University of Texas, where she played autoharp in Austin bars. A fraternity voted her ...[Read Story]