Port Arthur · Austin · San Francisco · Monterey · Woodstock · Hollywood

Janis Joplin

A Port Arthur girl who sang the blues like nobody Austin had heard, and gave her roadie $500 to paint her Porsche. Give the frames a coat of your own, then paint the car panel by panel further down.

Black and white, straight off the television. Pick a pot.

Port Arthur, Texas · born 19 January 1943

The class of 1960.
Ten years on.

She was born in Port Arthur on 19 January 1943. A refinery town on the Gulf, and a girl who loved art and old blues records.

Yearbook portrait of a smiling teenage Janis Joplin in a mortarboard and gown — Janis Joplin’s senior photograph, Thomas Jefferson High School, Port Arthur, 1960. Thomas Jefferson High School · Public domain

Class of ’60

1960Thomas Jefferson High School

She graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1960, after classmates taunted her for her looks and for speaking up for racial integration.

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1960: Thomas Jefferson High School.

Sources

A Porsche convertible covered nose to tail in painted swirls, butterflies, faces and a red and gold base coat — Her Porsche 356 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, December 2014. Sam Howzit · CC BY 2.0

Museum of the Gulf Coast, Port Arthur

The museum shows a replica of her painted Porsche beside her own artwork, and has her in its Music Hall of Fame.

The museum offers a downloadable road map of the places in her Southeast Texas life.

Monday to Saturday, 9am–5pm; closed Sundays and holidays. Adults $8. Park and enter on Lakeshore Drive.

Sources

Museum of the Gulf Coast

Port Arthur, Texas · Mon–Sat 9am–5pm · adults $8

Her home-town museum, with a replica of the painted Porsche, her own artwork and a road map of her Southeast Texas places. Pictured: the original car in Cleveland, 2014.

Plan a visit

Austin, Texas · Wednesday nights, early 1960s

A gas station,
an autoharp.

Press the chord bars. Each one rings out a line from Threadgill’s.

No chords pressed yet.

Sources

Janis Joplin mid-song, one arm raised, bracelets on both wrists — Janis Joplin on stage, from a 1973 Columbia trade advertisement. Columbia Records · Public domain

Threadgill’s, North Lamar

The restaurant closed in 2020 and the site was sold, with flats planned: see it from North Lamar Boulevard only.

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A 1964 Porsche 356 C Cabriolet

Paint the car.
Find the places.

She buys a four-year-old Porsche 356 SC Cabriolet from Estes-Zipper in Beverly Hills for $3,500. Her roadie Dave Richards paints the grey car Candy Apple Red and covers it in what he calls “The History of the Universe”, for $500.

Grey primer, as it came from the dealer. Lay the base coat first.

The car’s own story

1960s The car is stolen from a San Francisco street and painted over; Richards’s clear coat lets the art come back.
1970–1973 After her death the Porsche goes to Albert Grossman; in 1973 her brother and sister, Michael and Laura Joplin, take it back.
1995 She is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; her Porsche goes on loan to its museum for about 20 years.
2015 The Porsche sells at RM Sotheby’s in New York for $1,760,000.

A painted sun face with the Capricorn symbol on the yellow rear wing of the car, beside a blue-faced figure — The rear quarter of the Porsche, with a Capricorn sun painted on it, December 2014. Sam Howzit · CC BY 2.0

Close view of the car’s side panel painted with small figures, coloured shapes and a ladybird — The painted side of the Porsche, December 2014. Sam Howzit · CC BY 2.0

Sources

Black-and-white group portrait of the five band members, Janis Joplin seated in the centre with a dog at her feet — Big Brother and the Holding Company, c. 1966–67: David Getz, Janis Joplin, Sam Andrew, James Gurley and Peter Albin. Albert B. Grossman management · Public domain

San Francisco · 1963, and again from 1966

A band that needed
a singer.

On 10 June 1966 she played her first show with Big Brother and the Holding Company here.

Chet Helms booked the Avalon, a former dance hall on Sutter, from January 1966 to March 1969, with the Family Dog commune. Helms was her early champion, and drove to Texas twice to bring her to San Francisco.

That year she told the Mojo Navigator the Avalon sounded better than the Fillmore; the band was kept off the Fillmore’s stage for about seven months.

Sources

A grey two-storey ornamented building on a city street with tall arched upper windows — 1268 Sutter Street, the former Avalon Ballroom, in March 2022. HaeB · CC BY-SA 4.0

1268 Sutter Street, Polk Gulch, San Francisco

The Avalon Ballroom, Sutter Street

The old Avalon is office space now; the Regency Ballroom next door is often taken for it.

Offices now, not open to visitors: see the building from Sutter Street. The Regency Ballroom next door is a different hall.

Sources

Aerial view of San Francisco with the long green strip of Golden Gate Park and the Panhandle running toward the bay — Golden Gate Park and its Panhandle from the air, 2010; Lyon Street crosses the Panhandle. Jitze Couperus · CC BY 2.0

Lyon Street, by the Panhandle, San Francisco

122 Lyon Street

It was her first Haight apartment, which she shared with Country Joe McDonald.

An old phone book lists 122 Lyon, though some say she lived at 112, a few doors down.

A private home: named here, not mapped. Please do not knock or photograph the residents.

Sources

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1966–1969

One bangle
for every stage.

She wore them stacked up her wrists. Slide one on, and its stage opens.

Nothing on her wrist yet.

Janis Joplin laughing on a stool in a fur hat and loose blouse, one hand held out with bracelets on the wrist — Janis Joplin in a 1969 publicity photograph, bangles on her wrist. Albert B. Grossman Management · Public domain

Sources

Canada · 28 June – 4 July 1970

Fourteen coaches.
Three cities.

The Festival Express was a private, 14-coach CNR train that carried the bands from city to city. Two lounge cars held the jams: one for blues and rock, one for country and folk.

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An empty siding.

She forms the Full Tilt Boogie Band and debuts it at Freedom Hall in Louisville.

Sources

A grey granite headstone for Bessie Smith in a grassy cemetery, with flowers at its foot — Bessie Smith’s headstone at Mount Lawn Cemetery, May 2025. TypoBoy · CC0

Mount Lawn Cemetery, Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania

8 August 1970

On 8 August 1970 Janis Joplin provided a headstone for her grave.

Bessie Smith is buried at Mount Lawn Cemetery in Sharon Hill. Bessie Smith was one of the singers she found as a teenager in Port Arthur.

A working cemetery: visit quietly, in its opening hours.

Sources

Hollywood · October 1970

The last track.

A plain beige studio building behind a tree and a car park on Sunset Boulevard — Sunset Sound, Hollywood, October 2014. Coolcaesar · CC BY-SA 4.0

Sunset Sound, Hollywood

On 3 October 1970 she came to Sunset Sound to hear the instrumental track for “Buried Alive in the Blues”; her vocal was set for the next day.

A working studio, booked by the session: see it from the street. The studio has been working for more than 60 years, and names her among the artists it has served.

Sources

Janis Joplin smiling, hands on hips, in a dark patterned blouse with wide ruffled sleeves — Janis Joplin in a 1970 publicity photograph. Grossman Glotzer Management Corporation · Public domain

Highland Gardens Hotel, once the Landmark

She died at the Landmark Hotel on 4 October 1970, aged 27.

The Highland Gardens Hotel on Franklin Avenue is the hotel where she stayed, in room 105. It was built in the 1950s to a design by Edward Fickett, and is still a working hotel.

A working hotel, and people are staying there: be quiet and respectful, and leave the rooms to the guests.

She was cremated, and her ashes were scattered in the Pacific. Pearl came out on 11 January 1971; “Me and Bobby McGee” reached number one that March.

Sources

Where it is now

12 places you can visit, from Port Arthur to Calgary. 122 Lyon Street is a private home and is not mapped; the Avalon, Threadgill’s and Sunset Sound are seen from the street.

Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.

General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Monday to Saturday, 9am–5pm; closed Sundays and holidays. Adults $8. Park and enter on Lakeshore Drive.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. The restaurant closed in 2020 and the site was sold, with flats planned: see it from North Lamar Boulevard only.

Her Porsche 356 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, December 2014. Sam Howzit · CC BY 2.0
700 Procter Street, Port Arthur, Texas
Museum of the Gulf Coast, Port Arthur
She was born in Port Arthur on 19 January 1943.
Monday to Saturday, 9am–5pm; closed Sundays and holidays. Adults $8. Park and enter on Lakeshore Drive.
Sources
Janis Joplin on stage, from a 1973 Columbia trade advertisement. Columbia Records · Public domain
6416 North Lamar Boulevard, Austin, Texas
Threadgill’s, North Lamar
Kenneth Threadgill, a welder and bootlegger, turned a gas station here into a beer joint in 1933, just after Prohibition ended.
The restaurant closed in 2020 and the site was sold, with flats planned: see it from North Lamar Boulevard only.
Sources

Stay

A room on West 23rd Street.

The hotel where she said she was leaving Big Brother.

Hotel Chelsea

Hotel Chelsea, New York

Chelsea, Manhattan · 222 West 23rd Street · 212.483.1010

The West 23rd Street hotel where she said she was leaving Big Brother in 1968. It takes bookings and runs a café and bars.

Check rooms

Go there

Stand where it happened.

Her home-town museum, the Woodstock field, and music tours in San Francisco and Austin.

Museum of the Gulf Coast

Port Arthur, Texas · Mon–Sat 9am–5pm · adults $8

Her home-town museum, with a replica of the painted Porsche, her own artwork and a road map of her Southeast Texas places. Pictured: the original car in Cleveland, 2014.

Plan a visit

Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

The Museum at Bethel Woods

Bethel, New York · Daily 10am–5pm to 31 December · adults $22.69 ($19.69 in advance)

The museum on the 1969 Woodstock site, with guided golf-cart tours out to the field in season.

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