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Janis Joplin

Two and a half weeks after Jimi Hendrix died, on October 4, 1970, the world of rock was stunned to learn that he had been joined in the afterlife by Janis Joplin. Here was the one-two punch that made the curse of 27 achieve mythic proportion. A boisterous, ... moreself-destructive Texan who found her singing voice in the church and her inner one in San Francisco, Joplin had the most distinctive and powerful set of pipes anyone had ever heard, introduced first as the chanteuse of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist. She also had a taste for alcohol and narcotics that followed her wherever she went. No matter how many times she managed to get clean, she always relapsed. She died of a heroin overdose while recording an unfinished album released after her death as "Pearl."