Janis Joplin (1943 – 1970) was an American singer, songwriter and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist.
Joplin was a pioneer in the male-dominated rock music scene of the late 1960s, influencing generations of musicians to come. Stevie Nicks commented that after seeing Joplin perform, "I knew that a little bit of my destiny had changed. I would search to find that connection that I had seen between Janis and her audience. In a blink of an eye she changed my life."
Janis Joplin purchased a Porsche secondhand in 1968, and Big Brother and the Holding Company roadie Dave Richards painted the iconic “History of the Universe” mural, which features images of the band members among butterflies and jellyfish. Joplin owned the vehicle until her death in October 1970. In 2015, at a Sotheby’s car auction in New York, it sold for $1.76 million.
