Janis Joplin

Pearl
During September 1970 Joplin and her band began recording a new album in Los Angeles with renowned producer Paul A. Rothchild, who was famous for his work with The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was still enough usable material in the can to compile an LP. "Mercedes Benz" was included despite it being a "first take", and the track "Buried Alive In The Blues" -- to which Joplin had been scheduled to add her vocals on the day she was found dead -- was kept as an instrumental.

The result was the posthumously released Pearl (1971). It became the biggest selling album of her short career and featured her biggest hit single, the definitive version of Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee", as well as the wry social commentary of the a cappella "Mercedes Benz", written by Joplin and beat poet Michael McClure. In 2003, Pearl was ranked #122 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Among her last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show on June 25 and August 3, 1970. On the June 25 show she announced that she would attend her ten-year high school class reunion, although she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state, man". She made it there, but it would be one of the last decisions of her life and it reportedly proved to be a rather unhappy experience for her.[citation needed]

Janis Joplin's last public performance, with the Full Tilt Boogie Band, took place on 12 August 1970 at the Harvard Stadium in Cambridge, Massachusetts