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Joplin slowly returned to performing, and in May 1966, was recruited by friend Travis Rivers to audition for a new psychedelic rock band based in San Francisco, Big Brother and the Holding Company. In 1965, she left San Francisco and returned home in an effort to get herself together again. Joplin then spent some time in New York City, where she hoped to have better luck getting her career off the ground, but her drinking and drug use (she'd begun regularly using speed, or amphetamine, among other drugs) there proved to be detrimental to her musical aspirations. 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.
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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. Wednesday at Flora Funeral Service and Cremation Center, Rocky Mount.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. Thursday, Jwith Pastor Dan Schelling officiating. His service will be conducted at Flora Funeral Chapel, 2:00 p.m. Jay was evening manager of Food Lion, Stanleytown and loved visiting amusements parks and riding roller coasters. Surviving Jay is his fiancé, Alicia Cornett brother, John Joplin sons, Daniel Angle, Christian Deshazo, Grayson Boyer daughters, Chloe Dalton, Halie Boyer nieces, Cassidy Grace Joplin, Kaydence Rose Joplin nephew, Joshua Ryan Joplin aunt, Patricia Hix Joplin uncle, John Booth Joplin cousins, Joe Saunders Joplin (Sarah), Alice Fleming Joplin (Chuck) special friend, Aubrey Wright. He was preceded in death by his father and mother, James Witten and Shirley Joplin grandparents, Joe Saunders and Lucy Witten Joplin uncles, Joe Saunders Joplin II, Alva Rice great-aunt, Ann Saunders Joplin grandmother, Beulah Lillian Scruggs cousin, Christy Scruggs. Jay Witten Joplin, age 46, of Rocky Mount, Virginia, passed away suddenly Monday, Jat his residence.