The singer who died of an accidental drugs overdose had left $2,500 in her will to throw a wake party in the event of her demise. The party was attended by her sister Laura and Joplin's close friends; Brownies laced with hashish were unknowingly passed around amongst the guests.
Joplin was cremated in the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Mortuary in Los Angeles; her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean and along Stinson Beach.
She died in 1970 aged 27 from a heroin overdose; a fourth album was released posthumously. Key hits included Piece of My Heart, Me and Bobby McGee, Get It While You Can, Move Over and Cry Baby.
On Oct. 26, 1970, friends and members of San Francisco's music community attended Joplin's wake, a celebration of the life of one of rock's wildest stars. (Ultimateclassicrock)
Joplin's family insisted on a private funeral for the singer. Joplin was cremated and her ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean and Stinson Beach in Northern California on Oct. 13. But the tumult that was Joplin's life continued after her death. She had lived for about two years in Larkspur, Calif., and according to Joplin's will, it fell to her roommate, clothing designer Lyndall Erb, to distribute her furniture, jewelry and clothing among friends.
Even though Erb was supposed to distribute the singer's belongings to friends according to the closeness of their relationship with Joplin, Erb says the process became chaotic. "A lot of friends came in and took stuff," she recalls. "They just decided what they were gonna take. … It was kind of an odd situation. I was back east for a while, and came back and found that a lot of my personal stuff had been distributed in my absence. That was a little upsetting."
"People were coming over to that house and walking around and taking shit!" actor Peter Coyote, Joplin's friend, said in Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin. "You know, I want this and I want that. I couldn't believe it. People came over and took things, people I thought would be above that. Hell, I know she would have given the stuff away. But it hipped me to a relationship that was going on during her lifetime, and I thought to myself, 'Phewww, that's a lousy way to treat somebody.'
It’s hard to recall how much time went by or what happened onstage between the end of Eagle’s set and the beginning of Joplin’s. There were loud, unintelligible shouts coming from the stands, there were Frisbees floating over the field, and the sight of that purple haze became the smell of marijuana wafting through the stadium. The Full Tilt Boogie Band members slowly congregated near a stack of equipment cases. At about 10:30 p.m., pushing their way past Ballou, they and Joplin took the (bostonglobe.com )
And she was taking no prisoners. The brief, half-hour-plus show — comprising a few s06ongs fans knew, a couple of her own favorites, and new material she would record for “Pearl” — was a raucous affair. She launched into a high-spirited, screaming cover of Etta James’s “Tell Mama,” then slowed down the pace, but not the energy level, on John Hall’s “Half Moon.” Joplin, like the band and its name, was going full tilt.
Joplin spoke a few rambling words about being tired of “the social and political and religious set-up,” which led to one of those new ones — a powerhouse, mostly a cappella version of “Mercedes Benz,” followed by a potentially vocal-cord-shredding, rough-edged take of her own “My Baby,” and some funny, randy chatter about her San Francisco days when she would “go out into the street looking for a little piece of talent.” Both “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)” and “Maybe” were comparative low points in a concert full of high points, but the audience’s enthusiasm never flagged, and they ate up her gloriously ragged rendition of “Summertime.”
