Events

475 – Romulus Augustulus is proclaimed Western Roman Emperor.

1517 – Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther posts his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

1587 – Leiden University Library opens its doors after its founding in 1575.

1822 – Emperor Agustín de Iturbide attempts to dissolve the Mexican Empire.

1861 – American Civil War: Citing failing health, Union General Winfield Scott resigns as Commander of the United States Army.

1863 – The Maori Wars resumes as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron begin their Invasion of the Waikato.

1864 – Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state.

1876 – A monster cyclone ravages India, resulting in over 200,000 deaths.

1913 – Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile road across United States.

1913 – The Indianapolis Street Car Strike and subsequent riot begins.

1917 – World War I: Battle of Beersheba – "last successful cavalry charge in history".

1918 – Banat Republic is founded

1923 – The first of 160 consecutive days of 100 degrees at Marble Bar, Australia.

1924 – World Savings Day is announced in Milan, Italy by the Members of the Association at the 1st International Savings Bank Congress (World Society of Savings Banks).

1926 – Magician Harry Houdini dies of gangrene and peritonitis that developed after his appendix ruptured.

1938 – Great Depression: In an effort to restore investor confidence, the New York Stock Exchange unveils a fifteen-point program aimed to upgrade protection for the investing public.

1940 – World War II: The Battle of Britain ends – the United Kingdom prevents a possible German invasion.

1941 – After 14 years of work, Mount Rushmore is completed.

1941 – World War II: The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by a German U-boat near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by enemy action in WWII.

1941 – A fire in a clothing factory in Huddersfield, England kills 49

1943 – World War II: An F4U Corsair accomplishes the first successful radar-guided interception.

1944 – Dr. jur. Erich Göstl, a member of the Waffen SS, is awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, to recognise extreme battlefield bravery, after losing his face and eyes during the Battle of Normandy.

1954 – Algerian War of Independence: The Algerian National Liberation Front begins a revolt against French rule.

1956 – Suez Crisis: The United Kingdom and France begin bombing Egypt to force the reopening of the Suez Canal.

1959 – Lee Harvey Oswald attempts to renounce his American citizenship at the US Embassy in Moscow, USSR.

1961 – In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin's body is removed from Lenin's Tomb.

1963 – An explosion at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum (now Pepsi Coliseum) in Indianapolis kills 74 people during an ice skating show. The explosion also injures 400. A faulty propane tank connection in a concession stand is blamed.

1968 – Vietnam War October surprise: Citing progress with the Paris peace talks, US President Lyndon B. Johnson announces to the nation that he has ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam" effective November 1.

1973 – Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape. Three Provisional Irish Republican Army members escape from Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, Republic of Ireland aboard a hijacked helicopter that lands in the exercise yard.

1984 – Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two security guards. Riots soon break out in New Delhi and nearly 10,000 Sikhs are killed.

1994 – An American Eagle ATR-72 crashes in Roselawn, Indiana, after circling in icy weather, killing 68 passengers and crew.

1996 – A Fokker F100 operating as TAM Transportes Aéreos Regionais Flight 402 crashes into several houses in São Paulo, Brazil killing 98 including 2 on the ground.

1997 – 19-year-old British au pair Louise Woodward, convicted by a Cambridge, Massachusetts, jury of second-degree murder the day before, is sentenced to life in prison.

1998 – Iraq disarmament crisis begins: Iraq announces it would no longer cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.

1999 – EgyptAir Flight 990 traveling from New York City to Cairo crashes off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing all 217 on-board.

1999 – Yachtsman Jesse Martin returns to Melbourne after 11 months of circumnavigating the world, solo, non-stop and unassisted.

2000 – A Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 operating as Flight 006 collides with construction equipment upon takeoff in Taipei, Taiwan killing 79 passengers and four crew members.

2000 – A chartered Antonov An-26 explodes after takeoff in Northern Angola killing 50.

2000 – Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station. The ISS has been continuously crewed since.

2002 – A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas indicts former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to the collapse of his ex-employer.

2003 – A bankruptcy court approves MCI's reorganization plans, essentially clearing the telecommunications company to exit bankruptcy.

2003 – Mahathir bin Mohamad resigns as Prime Minister of Malaysia and is replaced by Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, marking an end to Mahathir's 22 years in power.

2003 – Bethany Hamilton is attacked by a tiger shark and loses her left arm and three liters of blood.

Births

1291 – Philippe de Vitry, French composer (d. 1361)

1345 – King Fernando I of Portugal (d. 1383)

1391 – King Edward of Portugal (d. 1438)

1424 – King Władysław III of Poland (d. 1444)

1538 – Caesar Baronius, Italian cardinal and historian (d. 1607)

1599 – Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles, English statesman and writer (d. 1680)

1620 – John Evelyn, English diarist (d. 1706)

1622 – Pierre Paul Puget, French artist (d. 1694)

1632 – (baptism) Johannes Vermeer, Flemish painter (d. 1675)

1636 – Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria (d. 1679)

1692 – Comte de Caylus, French archaeologist (d. 1765)

1705 – Pope Clement XIV (d. 1774)

1711 – Laura Bassi, Italian scholar (d. 1778)

1724 – Christopher Anstey, English writer (d. 1805)

1737 – James Lovell, American educator (d. 1789)

1795 – John Keats, British poet (d. 1821)

1815 – Karl Weierstraß, German mathematician (d. 1897)

1825 – Charles Lavigerie, French cardinal (d. 1892)

1827 – Richard Morris Hunt, American educator (d. 1895)

1831 – Paolo Mantegazza, Italian neurologist (d. 1910)

1835 – Adelbert Ames, American general, 27th and 30th Governor of Mississippi (d. 1933)

1835 – Adolf von Baeyer, German chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 1917)

1835 – Krišjānis Barons, Latvian writer (d. 1923)

1838 – King Louis of Portugal (d. 1889)

1848 – Boston Custer, brother of George Armstrong Custer (d. 1876)

1851 – Lovisa of Sweden, queen of Denmark (d. 1926)

1856 – Charles Leroux, American balloonist and parachutist (d. 1889)

1860 – Juliette Low, American founder of the Girl Scouts (d. 1927)

1875 – Eugene Meyer, American businessman and newspaper publisher (d. 1954)

1875 – Vallabhbhai Patel, Indian freedom fighter and statesman (d. 1950)

1879 – Sara Allgood, Irish actress (d. 1950)

1883 – Marie Laurencin, French painter (d. 1956)

1887 – Chiang Kai-shek, Nationalist Chinese leader, former Republic of China president (d. 1975)

1887 – Newsy Lalonde, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1970)

1888 – Napoleon Lapathiotis, Greek poet (d. 1944)

1892 – Alexander Alekhine, Russian chess player (d. 1946)

1895 – B. H. Liddell Hart, British military historian (d. 1970)

1896 – Ethel Waters, American singer and actress (d. 1977)

1902 – Abraham Wald, Hungarian mathematician (d. 1950)

1908 – Muriel Duckworth, Canadian activist (d. 2009)

1912 – Dale Evans, American singer and actress (d. 2001)

1912 – Ollie Johnston, American animator (d. 2008)

1914 – Joe Carcione, American consumer advocate (d. 1988)

1914 – John Hugenholtz, Dutch race track designer (d. 1995)

1916 – Carl Johan Bernadotte, former Prince of Sweden

1918 – Ian Stevenson, American parapsychologist (d. 2007)

1919 – Magnus Wenninger, American priest, author of Polyhedron models

1920 – Dick Francis, British jockey-turned-novelist (d. 2010)

1920 – Joseph Gelineau French composer (d. 2008)

1920 – Dedan Kimathi, Kenyan rebel leader (d. 1957)

1920 – Helmut Newton, German photographer (d. 2004)

1920 – Fritz Walter, German footballer (d. 2002)

1922 – Barbara Bel Geddes, American actress (d. 2005)

1922 – Anatoli Papanov, Soviet actor (d. 1987)

1922 – Illinois Jacquet, American saxophonist (d. 2004)

1922 – King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia

1925 – John Pople, English chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 2004)

1926 – Jimmy Savile, English entertainer

1927 – Lee Grant, American actress

1927 – Thomas Hill, Canadian actor (d. 2009)

1928 – Cleo Moore, American actress (d. 1973)

1929 – Eddie Charlton, Australian snooker player (d. 2004)

1929 – Bud Spencer, Italian actor

1930 – Michael Collins, American astronaut

1931 – Dan Rather, American television journalist

1933 – Phil Goyette, Canadian ice hockey player

1934 – Fillie Lyckow, Swedish actress

1935 – Ronald Graham, American mathematician

1935 – David Harvey, British-American academic

1936 – Michael Landon, American actor (d. 1991)

1937 – Tom Paxton, American singer-songwriter

1939 – Ron Rifkin, American actor

1939 – Tom O'Connor, British comedian

1939 – Ali Farka Touré, Malian musician

1941 – Dan Alderson, American scientist

1941 – Derek Bell, British racing driver

1941 – Spilios Spiliotopoulos, Greek politician

1941 – Werner Krieglstein, Czech-American philosopher

1942 – Dave McNally, American baseball player

1942 – David Ogden Stiers, American actor

1943 – Paul Frampton, English physicist

1943 – Aristotelis Pavlidis, Greek politician

1943 – Brian Piccolo, American football player (d. 1970)

1944 – Kinky Friedman, American musician and novelist

1944 – Sally Kirkland, American actress

1945 – Brian Doyle-Murray, American comedian and actor

1945 – Russ Ballard, English rock singer/songwriter, guitarist

1946 – Stephen Rea, Irish actor

1946 – Norman Lovett, British actor

1947 – Deidre Hall, American actress

1947 – Frank Shorter, American runner

1947 – Herman Van Rompuy, Belgian politician

1948 – Michael Kitchen, British actor

1949 – Bob Siebenberg, American drummer

1950 – John Candy, Canadian comedian and actor (d. 1994)

1950 – Jozef Stolorz, Polish art painter

1950 – Jane Pauley, American news anchor

1950 – Zaha Hadid, British architect

1950 – Antonio Taguba, US Army Major General

1951 – Nick Saban, American college football coach

1951 – Dave Trembley, American baseball manager

1952 – Bernard Edwards, American bass guitarist (d. 1996)

1953 – Michael J. Anderson, American actor

1953 – John Lucas II, American basketball player and coach

1954 – Ken Wahl, American actor

1955 – Michalis Chrysohoidis, Greek politician

1956 – Anders Lago, Swedish Social Democratic politician

1957 – Robert Pollard, American rocker

1957 – Brian Stokes Mitchell, American singer and actor

1957 – Shirley Phelps-Roper, American attorney

1958 – Jeannie Longo, French cyclist

1959 – Neal Stephenson, American author

1959 – Mats Näslund, Swedish ice hockey player

1959 – Michael DeLorenzo, American actor, director and musician

1960 – Luis Fortuño, Puerto Rican delegate to Congress

1960 – Arnaud Desplechin, French film director

1960 – Mike Gallego, American baseball player

1960 – Reza Pahlavi, former crown prince of Iran

1961 – Peter Jackson, New Zealand film director

1961 – Larry Mullen, Irish drummer (U2)

1961 – Alonzo Babers, American runner

1961 – Kate Campbell, American musician

1963 – Mikkey Dee, Swedish musician, drummer for Motörhead

1963 – Dunga, Brazilian footballer and manager

1963 – Johnny Marr, English guitarist and songwriter

1963 – Fred McGriff, American baseball player

1963 – Dermot Mulroney, American actor

1963 – Rob Schneider, American actor

1964 – Colm Ó Cíosóig, Irish drummer

1964 – Marco van Basten, Dutch footballer and manager

1964 – Marty Wright, American professional wrestler

1964 – Darryl Worley, American country singer

1965 – Blue Edwards, American basketball player

1965 – Denis Irwin, Irish footballer

1965 – Rob Rackstraw, voice actor

1966 – Joseph Boyden, Canadian novelist

1966 – Adam Horovitz (Adrock), American rapper (Beastie Boys)

1966 – Koji Kanemoto, Japanese professional wrestler

1966 – Annabella Lwin, British singer (Bow Wow Wow)

1966 – Mike O'Malley, American actor

1967 – Vanilla Ice, American rapper

1967 – Irina Pantaeva, Russian model and actress

1968 – Antonio Davis, American basketball player

1969 – David Coburn, American actor/voice actor

1970 – Nicky Wu, Taiwanese actor and martial arts expert

1970 – Linn Berggren, Swedish singer (Ace of Base)

1970 – Rogers Stevens, American guitarist (Blind Melon)

1970 – Mitch Harris, American guitarist (Napalm Death, among others)

1970 – Johnny Moeller, American blues guitarist

1970 – Steve Trachsel, American baseball player

1971 – Alphonso Ford, American basketball player (d. 2004)

1971 – Ian Walker, English footballer

1971 – Tom Smith, Scottish rugby player

1971 – Toby Anstis, British radio presenter

1972 – Shaun Bartlett, South African footballer

1972 – Matt Dawson, English rugby union footballer

1972 – Grigoris Georgatos, Greek footballer

1973 – Tim Byrdak, American baseball player

1973 – David Dellucci, American baseball player

1973 – Beverly Lynne, American erotic film actress

1974 – Muzzy Izzet, Turkish footballer

1974 – Natasja Saad, Danish hip hop and reggae artist (d. 2007)

1974 – Roger Manganelli, Brazilian musician (Less Than Jake)

1975 – Fabio Celestini, Swiss footballer

1975 – Keith Jardine, MMA fighter

1976 – Guti, Spanish footballer

1976 – Piper Perabo, American actress

1977 – Sylviane Félix, French athlete

1977 – Séverine Ferrer, French singer

1978 – Inka Grings, German footballer

1978 – Emmanuel Izonritei, Nigerian boxer

1978 – Zachary Knighton, American actor

1978 – Martin Verkerk, Dutch tennis player

1979 – Saaphyri Windsor, American reality TV figure

1979 – Simão Sabrosa, Portuguese footballer

1979 – Ricardo Fuller, Jamaican footballer

1980 – Eddie Kaye Thomas, American actor

1980 – Samaire Armstrong, American actress

1980 – Marcel Meeuwis, Dutch footballer

1980 – Alondra de la Parra, Mexican founder and artistic director of the New York–based Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas

1981 – Irina Denezhkina, Russian writer

1981 – Frank Iero, American musician (My Chemical Romance, Leathermouth, Pencey Prep; founder of Skeleton Crew (record label))

1981 – Steven Hunter, American basketball player

1981 – Selina (Chia-Hsüan) Jen, Taiwanese singer (S.H.E)

1981 – Lollie Alexi Devereaux, French actress & writer

1981 – Mike Napoli, MLB catcher and first baseman

1982 – Jordan Bannister, Australian rules footballer

1982 – Tomáš Plekanec, Czech ice hockey player

1982 – Justin Chatwin, Canadian actor

1983 – Katy French, Irish model (d. 2007)

1984 – Pat Murray, American football player

1986 – Christie Hayes, Australian actress

1986 – Chris Alajajian, Australian racing driver

1986 – Brent Corrigan, American pornographic actor

1987 – Nick Foligno, Canadian ice hockey player

1988 – Jack Riewoldt, Australian rules footballer

1988 – Sébastien Buemi, Swiss racing driver

1989 – Ben Brooks, British motocross racer

1990 – Lil' JJ, American comedian and actor

2000 – Willow Smith, American actress and singer

2005 – Infanta Leonor of Spain, daughter of Felipe, Prince of Asturias and Letizia, Princess of Asturias

Deaths

1147 – Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, English politician (b. c.1090)

1214 – Leonora of England, queen of Alfonso VIII of Castile (b. 1162)

1448 – John VIII Palaeologus, Byzantine Emperor (b. 1390)

1517 – Fra Bartolommeo, Italian artist (b. 1472)

1641 – Cornelis Jol, Dutch admiral and privateer (b. 1597)

1659 – John Bradshaw, English judge (b. 1602)

1723 – Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (b. 1642)

1732 – Victor Amadeus II of Savoy (b. 1666)

1733 – Eberhard IV Ludwig, Duke of Württemberg (b. 1676)

1744 – Leonardo Leo, Italian composer (b. 1694)

1765 – Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, English military leader (b. 1721)

1768 – Francesco Maria Veracini, Italian composer (b. 1690)

1860 – Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, British admiral (b. 1775)

1879 – Jacob Abbott, American author (b. 1803)

1879 – Joseph Hooker, American General (b. 1814)

1883 – Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Indian spiritual figure (b. 1824)

1884 – Marie Bashkirtseff, Russian painter (b. 1858)

1913 – William Evans-Gordon, British politician (b. 1857)

1916 – Charles Taze Russell, American religious figure (b. 1852)

1918 – Egon Schiele, Austrian painter (b. 1890)

1920 – Alphonse Desjardins, Québécois journalist and credit union executive (b. 1854)

1925 – Max Linder, French actor, director and screenwriter (b. 1883)

1926 – Harry Houdini, Hungarian-born American magician (b. 1874)

1929 – António José de Almeida, Portuguese politician (b. 1866)

1939 – Otto Rank, Austrian psychologist (b. 1884)

1946 – Gabriel Gabrio, French actor (b. 1887)

1952 – U Chit Hlaing, Burmese politician (b. 1879)

1959 – Jean Cabannes, French physicist (b. 1885)

1972 – Bill Durnan, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1916)

1973 – Malek Bennabi, Algerian thinker (b. 1905)

1975 – SD Burman, Indian musician (b. 1906)

1980 – Jan Werich, czech actor, playwright and writer (b. 1905)

1983 – George Halas, American professional football coach and team owner (b. 1895)

1984 – Indira Gandhi, Indian politician (b. 1917)

1984 – Eduardo De Filippo, Italian actor and screenwriter (b. 1900)

1985 – Poul Reichhardt, Danish actor (b. 1913)

1985 – Nikos Engonopoulos, Greek painter and poet (b. 1907)

1985 – Anton Christoforidis, Greek boxer (b. 1918)

1986 – Robert S. Mulliken, American physicist and chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1896)

1987 – Joseph Campbell, American author and expert on mythology (b. 1904)

1988 – John Houseman, Romanian-born American actor and director (b. 1902)

1988 – Alfred Pellan, Québécois painter (b. 1906)

1991 – Joseph Papp, American theatrical producer (b. 1921)

1991 – Gene Anderson, American professional wrestler (b. 1933)

1993 – Federico Fellini, Italian director (b. 1920)

1993 – River Phoenix, American actor (b. 1970)

1995 – Rosalind Cash, American actress (b. 1938)

1996 – Marcel Carné, French film director (b. 1906)

1998 – Elmer Vasko, Canadian ice hockey player (b. 1935)

1999 – Greg Moore, Canadian race car driver (b. 1975)

2000 – Ring Lardner, Jr., American screenwriter (b. 1915)

2001 – Régine Cavagnoud, French skier (b. 1970)

2002 – Lionel Poilâne, French baker and entrepreneur (b. 1945)

2002 – Michail Stasinopoulos, Greek politician (b. 1903)

2002 – Raf Vallone, Italian actor (b. 1916)

2003 – Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Indian singer (b. 1908)

2003 – Richard Neustadt, American political historian (b. 1919)

2005 – Mary Wimbush, English actress (b. 1924)

2005 – Hal Anger, American biophysicist (b. 1920)

2006 – P. W. Botha, South African politician (b. 1916)

2006 – Peter Fryer, English writer and journalist (b. 1927)

2007 – Ray Gravell, Welsh rugby footballer (b. 1951)

2008 – Studs Terkel, American author and radio personality (b. 1912)

2009 – Qian Xuesen, Chinese scientist (b. 1911)

2009 – Tom Wheatcroft, English businessman (b. 1922)

2010 – Maurice Lucas, American basketball player (b. 1952)

2010 – Theodore Sorensen, American lawyer and special counsel to John F. Kennedy (b. 1928)

Holidays and observances

Allantide (Cornwall, United Kingdom)

Christian Feast Day:

*Abaidas (Coptic Church)

*Quentin

*Wolfgang of Regensburg

*October 31 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)

Halloween (Ireland, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and other places)

Reformation Day (Slovenia and Protestant Church)

Samhain in the northern hemisphere, Beltane in the southern hemisphere; begins on sunset of October 31 (Gaels, Welsh people and Neopagans)

External links

BBC: On This Day

On This Day in Canada

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Category:Days of the year Category:October

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name	Alicia Keys
background	solo_singer
birth name	Alicia Augello Cook
alias	Lellow
birth place	January 25, 1981
origin	New York City, New York, United States
instrument	Vocals, piano, keyboards, cello, synthesizer, vocoder, guitar, bass guitar
genre	soul, R&B;, pop
occupation	Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, record producer, actress, music video director, author, poet, director
years active	1997–present
label	RCA Records, J Records, Arista, Columbia
website	}}

Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981), better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American soul singer, pianist and occasional actress. She was raised by a single mother in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. At age seven, Keys began to play classical music on the piano. She attended Professional Performing Arts School and graduated at 16 as valedictorian. She later attended Columbia University before dropping out to pursue her music career. Keys released her debut album with J Records, having had previous record deals first with Columbia and then Arista Records.

Keys' debut album, Songs in A Minor. The album was a commercial success, selling over 12 million copies worldwide. She became the best-selling new artist and best-selling R&B; artist of 2001. The album earned Keys five Grammy Awards in 2002, including Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Also, Grammy Award for Song of the Year Song of the Year for the hit song "Fallin". Her second studio album, The Diary of Alicia Keys, was released in 2003 and was also another success worldwide, selling eight million copies. The album garnered her an additional four Grammy Awards in 2005. Later that year, she released her first live album, "Unplugged" Alica Keys hit number one in the U.S. Keys became the first female to have an album to debut at number one and the highest since Nirvana in 1994.

Keys made guest appearances on several television series in the following years, beginning with Charmed. She made her film debut in Smokin' Aces and went on to appear in The Nanny Diaries in 2007. Her third studio album, As I Am, was released in the same year and sold six million copies worldwide, earning Keys an additional three Grammy Awards. The following year, she appeared in The Secret Life of Bees, which earned her a nomination at the NAACP Image Awards. She released her fourth album, The Element of Freedom, in December 2009, which became Keys' first chart-topping album in the United Kingdom. Throughout her career, Keys has won numerous awards and has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and 25 million singles, which makes her one of the best selling artists of all time. Billboard magazine named her the top R&B; artist of the 2000–2009 decade, establishing herself as one of the best-selling artists of her time. In 2010, VH1 included Keys on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Life and career

1981–96: Early life

Keys was born Alicia Augello Cook on January 25, 1981, in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan, in New York City, New York. She is the only child of Teresa Augello, a paralegal and part-time actress, and Craig Cook, a flight attendant. Keys' mother is of Italian, Scottish, and Irish descent, and her father is African American; Keys has expressed that she was comfortable with her biracial heritage because she felt she was able to "relate to different cultures". Her parents separated when she was two and she was subsequently raised by her mother during her formative years in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan. In 1985, Keys made an appearance on The Cosby Show at the age of four, where she and a group of girls played the parts of Rudy Huxtable's sleepover guests in the episode "Slumber Party". Throughout her childhood, Keys was sent to music and dance classes by her mother. She began playing the piano when she was seven and learned classical music by composers such as Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin. Keys enrolled in the Professional Performing Arts School at the age of 12, where she majored in choir and began writing songs at the age of 14. She graduated in three years as valedictorian at the age of 16.

In 1994 Keys met long-term manager Jeff Robinson after she enrolled in his brother's after-school program. The following year Robinson introduced Keys to her future A&R; at Arista Records, Peter Edge, who later described his first impressions to HitQuarters: "I had never met a young R&B; artist with that level of musicianship. So many people were just singing on top of loops and tracks, but she had the ability, not only to be part of hip-hop, but also to go way beyond that." Edge helped Robinson create a showcase for Keys and also got involved in developing her demo material. He was keen to sign Keys himself but was unable to do so at that time due to being on the verge of leaving his present record company. Keys signed to Columbia Records soon after. At the same time as signing a recording contract with Columbia Records, Keys was accepted into Columbia University. At first, Keys attempted to manage both but after four weeks dropped out of college to pursue her musical career fulltime.

1997–2000: Career beginnings

Keys signed a demo deal with Jermaine Dupri and So So Def Recordings, where she appeared on the label's Christmas album performing "The Little Drummer Girl". She also co-wrote and recorded a song entitled "Dah Dee Dah (Sexy Thing)", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1997 film, Men in Black. The song was Keys' first professional recording; however, it was never released as a single and her record contract with Columbia ended after a dispute with the label. Keys was unhappy with the label because her career had stalled during her two years under contract at Columbia due to executive indecision over her direction and major changes within the company. Keys called Clive Davis, who sensed a "special, unique" artist from her performance and signed her to Arista Records, which later disbanded. Keys almost chose Wilde as her stage name until her manager suggested the name Keys after a dream he had. Keys felt that name represented her both as a performer and person. Following Davis to his newly formed J Records label, she recorded the songs "Rock wit U" and "Rear View Mirror", which were featured on the soundtracks to the films Shaft (2000) and Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), respectively.

2001–2002: Songs in A Minor era

Keys released her first studio album, Songs in A Minor, in June 2001. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 236,000 copies in its first week. The album sold over 6.2 million copies in the United States, where it was certified six times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It went on to sell over 12 million copies worldwide, establishing Keys' popularity both inside and outside the United States, where she became the best-selling new artist and best-selling R&B; artist of 2001. The album's lead single, "Fallin'", spent six weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album's second single, "A Woman's Worth", was released in February 2002 and peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number three on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs, is his second Top 10 single in both charts. The album's third single, "How Come You Don't Call Me", was released in June 2002 and peaked at number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 30 on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs. The album's fourth single, "Girlfriend", was released in November 2002 in UK and peaked at number 82 on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs. The following year, the album was reissued as Remixed & Unplugged in A Minor, which included eight remixes and seven unplugged versions of the songs from the original.

Songs in A Minor led Keys to win five awards at the 2002 Grammy Awards: Song of the Year, Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance, and Best R&B; Song for "Fallin'", Best New Artist, and Best R&B; Album; "Fallin'" was also nominated for Record of the Year. Keys became the second female solo artist to win five Grammy Awards in a single night, following Lauryn Hill at the 41st Grammy Awards. That same year, she collaborated with Christina Aguilera for the latter's upcoming album Stripped on a song entitled "Impossible", which Keys wrote, co-produced, and provided with background vocals. During the early 2000s, Keys also made small cameos in television series Charmed and American Dreams.

2003–2005: The Diary of Alicia Keys and Unplugged era

Keys followed up her debut with The Diary of Alicia Keys, which was released in December 2003. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling over 618,000 copies its first week of release, becoming the largest first-week sales for a female artist in 2003. It sold 4.4 million copies in the United States and was certified four times Platinum by the RIAA. It sold eight million copies worldwide, becoming the sixth biggest-selling album by a female artist and the second biggest-selling album by a female R&B; artist. The album's lead single, "You Don't Know My Name", peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs for eight consecutive weeks, his first Top 10 single in both charts since 2002's "A Woman's Worth ". The album's second single, "If I Ain't Got You", was released in February 2004 and peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs for six weeks. The album's third single, "Diary", peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs chart, being their third consecutive Top 10 single in both charts. The album's fourth and final single, "Karma", which peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 17 on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs, first release to fail to achieve top ten status on both charts. "If I Ain't Got You" became the first single by a female artist to remain on the Billboard Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs chart for over a year. Keys also collaborated with recording artist Usher on the song "My Boo" from his 2004 album, Confessions (Special Edition). The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks and Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs for three weeks, became her first number-one single in Hot 100 since 2001's "Fallin'".

Keys won Best R&B; Video for "If I Ain't Got You" at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards; she performed the song and "Higher Ground" with Lenny Kravitz and Stevie Wonder. Later that year, Keys released her novel Tears for Water: Songbook of Poems and Lyrics, a collection of unreleased poems from her journals and lyrics. The title derived from one of her poems, "Love and Chains" from the line: "I don't mind drinking my tears for water." She said the title is the foundation of her writing because "everything I have ever written has stemmed from my tears of joy, of pain, of sorrow, of depression, even of question". The book sold over US$500,000 and Keys made The New York Times bestseller list in 2005. The following year, she won a second consecutive award for Best R&B; Video at the MTV Video Music Awards for the video "Karma". Keys performed "If I Ain't Got You" and then joined Jamie Foxx and Quincy Jones in a rendition of "Georgia on My Mind", the Hoagy Carmichael song made famous by Ray Charles in 1960 at the 2005 Grammy Awards. That evening, she won four Grammy Awards: Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance for "If I Ain't Got You", Best R&B; Song for "You Don't Know My Name", Best R&B; Album for The Diary of Alicia Keys, and Best R&B; Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals" for "My Boo" with Usher.

Keys performed and taped her installment of the MTV Unplugged series in July 2005 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. During this session, Keys added new arrangements to her original songs and performed a few choice covers. The session was released on CD and DVD in October 2005. Simply titled Unplugged, the album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart with 196,000 units sold in its first week of release. The album sold one million copies in the United States, where it was certified Platinum by the RIAA, and two million copies worldwide. The debut of Keys' Unplugged was the highest for an MTV Unplugged album since Nirvana's 1994 MTV Unplugged in New York and the first Unplugged by a female artist to debut at number one. The album's first single, "Unbreakable", peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number four on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs. It remained at number one on the Billboard Hot Adult R&B; Airplay for 11 weeks. The album's second and final single, "Every Little Bit Hurts", was released in January 2006, it failed to enter the U.S. charts.

Keys opened a recording studio in Long Island, New York, called The Oven Studios, which she co-owns with her production and songwriting partner Kerry "Krucial" Brothers. The studio was designed by renowned studio architect John Storyk of WSDG, designer of Jimi Hendrix' Electric Lady Studios. Keys and Brothers are the co-founders of KrucialKeys Enterprises, a production and songwriting team who assisted Keys in creating her albums as well as create music for other artists.

2006–2008: Film debut and As I Am era

In 2006, Keys won three NAACP Image Awards, including Outstanding Female Artist and Outstanding Song for "Unbreakable". She also received the Starlight Award by the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In October 2006, she played the voice of Mommy Martian in the "Mission to Mars" episode of the children's television series The Backyardigans, in which she sang an original song, "Almost Everything Is Boinga Here". That same year, Keys nearly suffered a mental breakdown. Her grandmother had died and her family was heavily dependent on her. She felt she needed to "escape" and went to Egypt for three weeks. She explained: "That trip was definitely the most crucial thing I've ever done for myself in my life to date. It was a very difficult time that I was dealing with, and it just came to the point where I really needed to—basically, I just needed to run away, honestly. And I needed to get as far away as possible."

Keys made her film debut in early 2007 in the crime film Smokin' Aces, co-starring as an assassin named Georgia Sykes opposite Ben Affleck and Andy García. Keys received much praise from her co-stars in the film; Reynolds said that Keys was "so natural" and that she would "blow everybody away". Smokin' Aces had a hit moderate performance at the box office, earning only $57,103,895 worldwide during its theatrical run. In the same year, Keys earned further praise for her second film, The Nanny Diaries, based on the 2002 novel of the same name, where she co-starred alongside Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans. The Nanny Diaries had a hit moderate performance at the box office, earning only $44,638,886 worldwide during its theatrical run. She also guest starred as herself in the "One Man Is an Island" episode of the drama series Cane.

Keys released her third studio album, As I Am, in November 2007; it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 742,000 copies in its first week. It gained Keys her largest first week sales of her career and became her fourth consecutive number one album, tying her with Britney Spears for the most consecutive number-one debuts on the Billboard 200 by a female artist. The week became the second largest sales week of 2007 and the largest sales week for a female solo artist since singer Norah Jones' album Feels like Home in 2004. The album has sold nearly four million copies in the United States and has been certified three times Platinum by the RIAA. It has sold nearly six million copies worldwide. Keys received five nominations for As I Am at the 2008 American Music Award and ultimately won two. The album's lead single, "No One", peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for fifth consecutive weeks and Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs for ten consecutive weeks, became her first number-one single in Hot 100 since 2004's "My Boo" and becoming Keys' third and fifth number-one single on each chart, respectively. The album's second single, "Like You'll Never See Me Again", was released in late 2007 and peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs for seven consecutive weeks. From October 27, 2007, when "No One" reached No. 1, through February 16, 2008, the last week "Like You'll Never See Me Again" was at No. 1, the Keys was on top of the chart for 17 weeks, more consecutive weeks than any other artist in Hot R&B;/Hip/Hop Songs chart. The album's third single, "Teenage Love Affair", which peaked at number 54 on the 'Billboard Hot 100 and number three on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs. The album's fourth and final single, "Superwoman", which peaked at number 82 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 12 on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs.

"No One" earned Keys the awards for Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance and Best R&B; Song at the 2008 Grammy Awards. Keys opened the ceremony singing Frank Sinatra's 1950s song "Learnin' the Blues" as a "duet" with archival footage of Sinatra in video and "No One" with John Mayer later in the show. Keys also won Best Female R&B; Artist during the show. She starred in "Fresh Takes", a commercial micro-series created by Dove Go Fresh, which premiered during The Hills on MTV from March to April 2008. The premiere celebrated the launch of new Dove Go Fresh. She also signed a deal as spokesperson with Glacéau's VitaminWater to endorse the product, and was in an American Express commercial for the "Are you a Cardmember?" campaign. Keys, along with The White Stripes' guitarist and lead vocalist Jack White, recorded the theme song to Quantum of Solace, the first duet in Bond soundtrack history. In 2008, Keys was ranked in at number 80 the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists. She also starred in The Secret Life of Bees, a film adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's acclaimed 2003 bestseller novel of the same name alongside Jennifer Hudson, Dakota Fanning, Paul Bettany and Queen Latifah, released in October 2008 via Fox Searchlight. The Secret Life of Bees had a hit moderate performance at the box office, earning only $39,947,322 worldwide during its theatrical run. Her role earned her a nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. She also received three nominations at the 2009 Grammy Awards and won Best Female R&B; Vocal Performance for "Superwoman".

In an interview with Blender magazine, Keys allegedly said "'Gangsta rap' was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other, 'gangsta rap' didn't exist" and went on to say that it was created by "the government". The magazine also claimed she said that Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. were "essentially assassinated, their beefs stoked by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing". Keys later wrote a statement clarifying the issues and saying her words were misinterpreted. Later that year, Keys was criticized by anti-smoking campaigners after billboard posters for her forthcoming concerts in Indonesia featured a logo for the A Mild cigarette brand sponsored by tobacco firm Philip Morris. She apologized after discovering that the concert was sponsored by the firm and asked for "corrective actions". In response, the company withdrew its sponsorship.

2009– The Element of Freedom, marriage and motherhood era

Keys and manager Jeff Robinson signed a film production deal to develop live-action and animated projects with Disney. Their first film will be a remake of the 1958 comedy Bell, Book and Candle and will star Keys as a witch who casts a love spell to lure a rival's fiancé. Keys and Robinson also formed a television production company called Big Pita. Keys and Robinson will develop live-action and animated projects from their company, Big Pita and Little Pita, with Keys as producer, thespian, banner spearheading soundtrack and music supervision.

Keys collaborated with the record producer Swizz Beatz to write and produce "Million Dollar Bill" for Whitney Houston's seventh studio album, I Look to You. Keys had approached Clive Davis for permission to submit a song for the album. Keys also collaborated with the recording artist Jay-Z on the song "Empire State of Mind" from his 2009 album, The Blueprint 3. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 and became her fourth number-one single on that chart. At the 53rd Grammy Awards ceremony, "Empire State of Mind" won Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and Best Rap Song. It had also been one of the five nominees for Record of the Year. The following month, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers honored Keys with the Golden Note Award, an award given to artists "who have achieved extraordinary career milestones". She collaborated with Spanish recording artist Alejandro Sanz for "Looking for Paradise", which topped the Hot Latin Songs chart, this was Keys' first number one on all three charts, which also made her the first African-American of non-Hispanic origin to reach #1 on the Hot Latin Tracks. Keys released her fourth studio album, The Element of Freedom, in December 2009. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 417,000 copies in its first week. As part of the promotional drive for the album, she performed at the Cayman Island Jazz Festival on December 5, the final night of the three day festival which will be broadcast on Black Entertainment Television (BET). The album's lead single, "Doesn't Mean Anything", has peaked at number 60 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 14 on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs. Keys was ranked as the top R&B; recording artist of the 2000–2009 decade by Billboard magazine and ranked at number five as artist of the decade, while her song, "No One", was ranked at number six on the magazine's songs of the decade. In the United Kingdom, The Element of Freedom became Keys' first album to top the UK Albums Chart. The album's second single, "Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart", was released in November 2009 and peaked at number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs. The album's third single, "Put It in a Love Song", featruing Grammy-winner Beyoncé, peaked at number 60 on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs. The music video for the single, which was filmed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has been postponed several times, and later it was confirmed that Alicia Keys' team made a decision not to release the video. The album's fourth single, "Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down", was released in February 2010 and peaked at number 55 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 76 on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs. The album's fifth single, "Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready)", was released in May 2010 and peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs, for twelve consecutive weeks and became the album's most successful single, becoming Keys' eighth number-one single on Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The album's sixth and final single, "Wait Til You See My Smile", was released in December 2010 in the U.K only.

In May 2009, Swizz Beatz announced that he and Keys were romantically involved, and in May 2010, a representative for Keys and Swizz Beatz confirmed that they were engaged and expecting a child together. During the time of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the couple took part of a union and had the unborn child blessed in a Zulu ceremony, which took place in the Illovo suburb of South Africa. Keys and Swizz Beatz were married on the French island of Corsica on July 31, 2010. On October 14, 2010, Keys gave birth to a son, Egypt Daoud Ibarr Dean, in New York City.

In June 2011, Songs in A Minor was re-released as deluxe and collector's editions in commemoration of its 10th anniversary. To support the release, Keys embarked on a four-city promotional tour, entitled Piano & I: A One Night Only Event With Alicia Keys, featuring only her piano. Keys is also set to co-produce the Broadway premiere of Stick Fly, which will open in December 2011. On September 26, 2011, was the premiere of Project 5 known as Five, short film that marks the debut of Alicia Keys as a director. It is a documentary of five episodes that tell stories of five women who were victims of breast cancer and how it affected their lives. The production also has co-direction of the actresses Jennifer Aniston, Demi Moore and film director Patty Jenkins.

On September 23, she performed at iHeart Music Festival and sang her new song "A Place Of My Own", which is present in her fifth studio album. On October 7, RCA Music Group announced it was disbanding J Records along with Arista Records and Jive Records. With the shutdown, Keys (and all other artists previously signed to these three labels) will release her future material on the RCA Records brand.

Musical style

An accomplished pianist, Keys incorporates piano into a majority of her songs and often writes about love, heartbreak and female empowerment. She has cited several musicians as her inspirations, including Prince, Nina Simone, Barbra Streisand, Marvin Gaye, Quincy Jones, Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder. Keys' style is rooted in gospel and vintage soul music, supplemented by bass and programmed drumbeats. She heavily incorporates classical piano with R&B;, soul and jazz into her music. She began experimenting with other genres, including pop and rock, in her third studio album, As I Am, transitioning from neo soul to a 1980s and 1990s R&B; sound with her fourth album, The Element of Freedom. Patrick Huguenin of the New York Daily News stated that her incorporation of classical piano riffs contributed to her breakout success. Jet magazine states she "thrives" by touching her fans with "piano mastery, words and melodious voice". The Independent described her style as consisting of "crawling blues coupled with a hip-hop backbeat", noting that her lyrics "rarely stray from matters of the heart". Blender magazine referred to her as "the first new pop artist of the millennium who was capable of changing music."

Keys has a vocal range of a contralto, which spans three octaves. Often referred to as the "Princess of Soul", Keys has been commended as having a strong, raw and impassioned voice; others feel that her voice is "emotionally manufactured" at times and that she pushes her voice out of its natural range. Keys' songwriting is often criticized for lack of depth, which has led to her writing abilities being called limited. Her lyrics have been called generic, clichéd and that her songs revolve around generalities. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune feels that she "[pokes] around for multi-format hits rather than trying to project any sort of artistic vision". Diversely, Jon Pareles of Blender magazine stated that the musical composition of her songs makes up for their lyrical weakness, while Gregory Stephen Tate of The Village Voice compared Keys' writing and production to 1970s music.

Joanna Hunkin of The New Zealand Herald reviewed one of Keys' performances, where Kylie Minogue also attended. She described Minogue's reaction to Keys' performance, saying "it was obvious she was just as much of a fan as the 10,000 other people at Vector Arena". She went on to say that Minogue was "the original pop princess bowing down to the modern-day queen of soul". Hunkin characterized Keys' opening performance as a "headbanging, hip-gyrating performance" and her energy as "high-octane energy most bands save for their closing finale". At the end of her two-hour performance, fans "screamed, stomped and begged for a second encore". Hillary Crosley and Mariel Concepcion of Billboard magazine noted that her shows are "extremely coordinated" with the audience's attention span "consistently maintained". The show ended with a standing ovation and Keys "proved that a dynamic performance mixed with superior musicianship always wins". Throughout her career, Keys has won numerous awards and is listed on the Recording Industry Association of America's best-selling artists in the United States, with 15 million certified albums. She has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and has established herself as one of the best-selling artists of her time.

Philanthropy

Keys is the co-founder and Global Ambassador of Keep a Child Alive, a non-profit organization that provides medicine to families with HIV and AIDS in Africa. Keys and U2 lead singer Bono recorded a cover version of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush's "Don't Give Up", in recognition of World AIDS Day 2005. Keys and Bono's version of the song was retitled "Don't Give Up (Africa)" to reflect the nature of the charity it was benefiting. She visited African countries such as Uganda, Kenya and South Africa to promote care for children affected by AIDS. Her work in Africa was documented in the documentary Alicia in Africa: Journey to the Motherland and was available in April 2008.

Keys has also donated to Frum tha Ground Up, a non-profit organization that aids children and teenagers with scholarships. She performed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as part of the worldwide Live 8 concerts to raise awareness of the poverty in Africa and to pressure the G8 leaders to take action. In 2005, Keys performed on ReAct Now: Music & Relief and Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast, two benefit programs that raised money for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. In July 2007, Keys and Keith Urban performed The Rolling Stones' 1969 song "Gimme Shelter" at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey at the American leg of the Live Earth concerts.

Keys performed Donny Hathaway's 1973 song "Someday We'll All Be Free" at the America: A Tribute to Heroes televised benefit concert following the September 11 attacks. She participated in the Nobel Peace Prize Concert which took place at the Oslo Spektrum in Oslo, Norway, on December 11, 2007, along with other various artists. She recorded a theme song for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. She joined Joss Stone and Jay-Z on the effort, which served as a theme song for Obama's campaign. For her work, Keys was honored at the 2009 BET Awards with the Humanitarian Award. Keys performed the song "Prelude to a Kiss", retitled "Send Me an Angel", from her 2007 album As I Am for the "Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief" telethon in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Discography

Songs in A Minor (2001)

The Diary of Alicia Keys (2003)

As I Am (2007)

The Element of Freedom (2009)

;Live albums

Unplugged (2005)

Tours

{|class="wikitable" ! style="background-color: #A9A9A9;"| Year !! style="background-color: #A9A9A9;"| Title !! style="background-color: #A9A9A9;"| Number ofperformances |- | style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center" width=5 | 2001/2002 || style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center"| Songs in A Minor Tour ||style="background-color: #DCDCDC;"| 58 |- | style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center" width=5 | 2004|| style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center"| Verizon Ladies First Tour ||style="background-color: #DCDCDC;"| 25 |- | style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center" width=5 | 2005 || style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center"| The Diary Tour ||style="background-color: #DCDCDC;"| 36 |- | style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center" width=5 | 2008 || style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center"| As I Am Tour ||style="background-color: #DCDCDC;"| 94 |- | style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center" width=5 | 2010 || style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center"| The Freedom Tour ||style="background-color: #DCDCDC;"| 50 |- | style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center" width=5 | 2011 || style="background-color: #DCDCDC;" align="center"| Piano & I: A One Night Only Event With Alicia Keys ||style="background-color: #DCDCDC;"| 5 |}

Filmography

Television
!Year	!Title	!Role	!Notes
1985	The Cosby Show	Maria
2001	Charmed	P3 VIP Patron (uncredited)
	American Dreams	Fontella Bass	"Rescue Me" (season 2, episode 6)
The Proud Family	Herself (voice)
2005	Sesame Street	Herself	Season 36
2006	The Backyardigans	Mommy Martian (voice)
		Herself	"One Man Is an Island" (season 1, episode 7)
Elmo's Christmas Countdown	Herself	Christmas television special
2008		Alex	Starred in all five episodes
2010	American Idol (season 9)	Herself	Mentor
Film
!Year	!Title	!Role	!Notes
	Smokin' Aces	Georgia Sykes	Debut filmMain role
	Lynette	Support role
2008		June Boatwright	Main role
Director
!Year	!Title	!Type	!Notes
		Music video	MTV Video Music Award for Best R&B; Video
2011	Project 5	Short film/Documentary

See also

List of artists who reached number one in the United States

List of awards and nominations received by Alicia Keys

List of honorific titles in popular music

References

Further reading

External links

Alicia Keys at Billboard.com

Alicia Keys at Discogs

Alicia Keys at Metacritic

Category:Actors from New York City Category:African American female singers Category:African American singer-songwriters Category:American composers Category:American contraltos Category:American film actors Category:American multi-instrumentalists Category:American music arrangers Category:American music video directors Category:American musicians of Irish descent Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:American musicians of Scottish descent Category:American philanthropists Category:American pianists Category:American pop singer-songwriters Category:American record producers Category:American rhythm and blues keyboardists Category:American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters Category:American soul keyboardists Category:American soul singers Category:American television actors Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Living people Category:Neo soul singers Category:People from Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan Category:J Records artists Category:RCA Records artists Category:Rhythm and blues pianists Category:Singers from New York City Category:World Music Awards winners Category:1981 births

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Name	Janis Joplin
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Janis Lyn Joplin
Born	January 19, 1943 Port Arthur, Texas, United States
Died	October 04, 1970 Los Angeles, California, United States
Instrument	Vocals, guitar, autoharp, harmonica, percussion
Genre	Blues-rock, psychedelic rock, blues, hard rock, soul, country, folk
Occupation	Singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, painter, dancer
Years active	1962–1970
Label	Columbia
Associated acts	Big Brother & the Holding CompanyKozmic Blues BandFull Tilt Boogie Band The Grateful Dead
Website	officialjanis.com }}

Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer 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 with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band. At the height of her career she was known as The Queen of Rock and Roll as well as The Queen of Psychedelic Soul. Rolling Stone magazine ranked Joplin number 46 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004, and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Early life: 1943–1965

Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on January 19, 1943, to Dorothy (née East) Joplin (1913–1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Joplin (1910–1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family attended the Church of Christ. The Joplins felt that Janis always needed more attention than their other children, with her mother stating, "She was unhappy and unsatisfied without [receiving a lot of attention]. The normal rapport wasn't adequate."

As a teenager, she befriended a group of outcasts, one of whom had albums by African-American blues artists Bessie Smith and Leadbelly, whom Joplin later credited with influencing her decision to become a singer. She began singing in the local choir and expanded her listening to blues singers such as Odetta and Big Mama Thornton.

Primarily a painter while still in school, she first began singing blues and folk music with friends. While at Thomas Jefferson High School, she stated that she was mostly shunned. Joplin was quoted as saying, "I was a misfit. I read, I painted, I didn't hate niggers." As a teen, she became overweight and her skin broke out so badly she was left with deep scars which required dermabrasion. Other kids at high school would routinely taunt her and call her names like "pig," "freak" or "creep." Among her classmates were G. W. Bailey and Jimmy Johnson.

Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer and later the University of Texas at Austin, though she did not complete her studies. The campus newspaper The Daily Texan ran a profile of her in the issue dated July 27, 1962 headlined "She Dares To Be Different." The article began, "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her Autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break into song it will be handy. Her name is Janis Joplin."

Cultivating a rebellious manner, Joplin styled herself in part after her female blues heroines and, in part, after the Beat poets. Her first song recorded on tape, at the home of a fellow student in December 1962, was "What Good Can Drinkin' Do". She left Texas for San Francisco ("just to get away from Texas," she said, "because my head was in a much different place") in January 1963, living in North Beach and later Haight-Ashbury. In 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, further accompanied by Margareta Kaukonen on typewriter (as percussion instrument). This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk," "Trouble In Mind," "Kansas City Blues," "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" and "Long Black Train Blues," and was later released as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape.

Around this time her drug use increased, and she acquired a reputation as a "speed freak" and occasional heroin user. She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite beverage was Southern Comfort.

In the spring of 1965, Joplin's friends, noticing the physical effects of her amphetamine habit (she was described as "skeletal" and "emaciated"), persuaded her to return to Port Arthur, Texas. In May 1965, Joplin's friends threw her a bus-fare party so she could return home. Back in Port Arthur, she changed her lifestyle. She avoided drugs and alcohol, began wearing relatively modest dresses, adopted a beehive hairdo, and enrolled as a sociology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. During her year at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to perform solo, accompanying herself on guitar. One of her performances was reviewed in the Austin American-Statesman. Joplin became engaged to a man who visited her, wearing a blue serge suit, to ask her father for her hand in marriage, but the man terminated plans for the marriage soon afterwards.

Big Brother and the Holding Company: 1966–1968

In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, a band that had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who had known her in Texas and who at the time was managing Big Brother. Helms brought her back to San Francisco and Joplin joined Big Brother on June 4, 1966. Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. In June she was photographed at an outdoor concert that celebrated the summer solstice. The image, which was later published in two books by David Dalton, shows her before she relapsed into drugs. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drug use for several weeks, enjoining bandmate Dave Getz to promise that using needles would not be allowed in their rehearsal space or in her apartment or in the homes of her bandmates whom she visited. When a visitor injected drugs in front of Joplin and Getz, Joplin angrily reminded Getz that he had broken his promise. A San Francisco concert from that summer was recorded and released in the 1984 album Cheaper Thrills. In July all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California where they lived communally. They often partied with the Grateful Dead, who lived less than two miles away.

On August 23, 1966, during a four week engagement in Chicago, the group signed a deal with independent label Mainstream Records. Joplin relapsed into drinking when she and her bandmates (except for Peter Albin) joined some "alcoholic hipsters," as Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn described them, in Chicago. The band recorded tracks in a Chicago recording studio, but the label owner Bob Shad refused to pay their airfare back to San Francisco. Shortly after four of the five musicians drove from Chicago to Northern California with very little money (Albin traveled by plane), they returned to Lagunitas. It was there that Joplin relapsed into intravenous drug use with the encouragement of James' wife Nancy Gurley. Three years later Joplin, by then using a different band, was informed of Nancy's death from an overdose.

One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple.

In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months. Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco, at the Fillmore West, Winterland and the Avalon Ballroom. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia, the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.

The band's debut album was released by Columbia Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two songs from Big Brother's set at Monterey were filmed. Combination of the Two and a version of Big Mama Thornton's Ball and Chain appear in the DVD box set of D.A. Pennebaker's documentary Monterey Pop released by The Criterion Collection. The film captured Cass Elliot, singer in The Mamas and the Papas, seated in the audience silently mouthing "Wow! That's really heavy!" during Joplin's performance of Ball and Chain. Only Ball and Chain was included in the film that was released to theaters nationwide in 1969 and shown on television in the 1970s. Those who did not attend Monterey Pop saw the band's performance of Combination of the Two for the first time in 2002 when The Criterion Collection released the box set.

After switching managers from Chet Helms to Julius Karpen in 1966, the group signed with top artist manager Albert Grossman, whom they met for the first time at Monterey Pop. For the remainder of 1967, Big Brother performed mainly in California. On February 16, 1968, the group began its first East Coast tour in Philadelphia, and the following day gave their first performance in New York City at the Anderson Theater. On April 7, 1968, the last day of their East Coast tour, Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the "Wake for Martin Luther King, Jr." concert in New York.

Live at Winterland '68, recorded at the Winterland Ballroom on April 12 and 13, 1968, features Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company at the height of their mutual career working through a selection of tracks from their albums. A recording became available to the public for the first time in 1998 when Sony Music Entertainment released the compact disc.

During the spring of 1968, Joplin and Big Brother made their nationwide television debut on The Dick Cavett Show, an ABC daytime variety show hosted by Dick Cavett. Shortly thereafter, network employees wiped the videotape. In later years she made three appearances on the primetime Cavett program, and all were preserved. Throughout 1968, the band was billed as "Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company," although the media coverage given to Joplin incurred resentment among the other members of the band. The other members of Big Brother thought that Joplin was on a "star trip," while others were telling Joplin that Big Brother was a terrible band and that she ought to dump them.

TIME magazine called Joplin "probably the most powerful singer to emerge from the white rock movement," and Richard Goldstein, wrote for the May 1968 issue of Vogue magazine that Joplin was "the most staggering leading woman in rock... she slinks like tar, scowls like war... clutching the knees of a final stanza, begging it not to leave... Janis Joplin can sing the chic off any listener."

Cheap Thrills

For her first major studio recording, Janis played a major role in the arrangement and production of the recordings that would become Big Brother And The Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. During the recording, Joplin was the said to be the first person to enter the studio and the last person to leave. The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb. Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, only Ball and Chain was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a cocktail glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song Turtle Blues. Together with the premiere of the documentary film Monterey Pop at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on December 26, 1968, the album launched Joplin's successful, albeit short, musical career.

Cheap Thrills reached #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart eight weeks after its release, remaining for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. The album was certified gold at release and sold over a million copies in the first month of its release. The lead single from the album, "Piece of My Heart" reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1968.

The band made another East Coast tour during July–August 1968, performing at the Columbia Records convention in Puerto Rico and the Newport Folk Festival. After returning to San Francisco for two hometown shows at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival on August 31 and September 1, Joplin announced that she would be leaving Big Brother. The group continued touring through the fall and Joplin gave her last official performance with Big Brother at a Family Dog benefit on December 1, 1968.

Solo career: 1969–1970

Kozmic Blues Band

After splitting from Big Brother And The Holding Company, Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt Rhythm and Blues bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. The Stax-Volt R&B; sound was typified by the use of horns and had a more bluesy, funky, soul, pop-oriented sound than most of the hard-rock psychedelic bands of the period.

By early 1969, Joplin was allegedly shooting at least $200 worth of heroin per day, although efforts were made to keep her clean during the recording of I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. Gabriel Mekler, who produced the Kozmic Blues, told publicist-turned-biographer Myra Friedman after Joplin's death that the singer had lived in his house during the June 1969 recording sessions at his insistence so he could keep her away from drugs and her drug-using friends.

The Kozmic Blues Band performed on many television shows with Joplin. On one episode of The Dick Cavett Show they performed Try (Just A Little Bit Harder) as well as To Love Somebody. As Cavett interviewed Joplin, she admitted that she had a terrible time touring in Europe, claiming that audiences there are very uptight and don't get down. She also revealed that she was a big fan of the then unknown Tina Turner, saying that she was an incredible singer, dancer and show woman.

I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!

The Kozmic Blues album, released in September 1969, was certified gold later that year but did not match the success of Cheap Thrills. Reviews of the new group were mixed. Some music critics, including Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle, were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and that Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother...(if they'll have her)." Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post generally ignored the band's flaws and devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! reached #6 on the Billboard 200 weeks after it's release.

Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band toured North America and Europe throughout 1969, appearing at Woodstock in the early morning hours of Sunday, August 17. Her friend Peggy Caserta claimed in a 1973 book that she encouraged Joplin to perform at the festival. Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. When she and the band flew by helicopter from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd she instantly became incredibly nervous and giddy. The documentary film of the festival that was released to theaters the following year includes, on the left side of a split screen (filmmaking), 37 seconds of footage of Joplin and Caserta walking toward her dressing room tent. By most accounts, Woodstock was not a happy affair for Joplin. Faced with a ten hour wait after arriving at the backstage area, she shot heroin with Caserta and was drinking alcohol, so by the time she hit the stage, she was "three sheets to the wind." On stage her voice became slightly hoarse and wheezy and she found it hard to dance. She pulled through, however, and the audience was so pleased they cheered her on for an encore, causing her to perform Ball and Chain twice. Joplin was unhappy with her performance and blamed Caserta. Her singing was not included in the documentary film or the hit soundtrack, although the 25th anniversary director's cut of Woodstock includes her performance of Work Me, Lord.

In addition to Woodstock, Joplin also had problems four months later at Madison Square Garden where, as she told rock journalist David Dalton, the audience watched and listened to "every note [she sang] with 'Is she gonna make it?' in their eyes." In her interview with Dalton she added that she felt most comfortable performing at small, cheap venues in San Francisco that were associated with the counterculture. At the time of this June 1970 interview she already had performed in the Bay Area for what turned out to be the last time.

Sam Andrew, the lead guitarist who had left Big Brother with Joplin in December 1968 to form her back-up band, quit in late summer 1969 and returned to Big Brother without her. At the end of the year, the Kozmic Blues Band broke up. Their final gig with Joplin was at Madison Square Garden in New York City on the night of December 19–20, 1969.

Full Tilt Boogie Band

In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites, who had designed the singer's stage costumes from 1967 to 1969. Joplin was romanced by a fellow American tourist named David (George) Niehaus, who was traveling around the world. A Joplin biography written by her sister Laura said, "David was an upper-middle-class Cincinnati kid who had studied communications at Notre Dame. ... [and] had joined the Peace Corps after college and worked in a small village in Turkey. ... He tried law school, but when he met Janis he was taking time off." Niehaus and Joplin were photographed by the press at Rio Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Gravenites also took color photographs of the two during their Brazilian vacation. According to Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn, in Gravenites' snapshots they "look like a carefree, happy, healthy young couple having a tremendously good time." Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Joplin during an international phone call, quoting her, "I'm going into the jungle with a big bear of a beatnik named David Niehaus. I finally remembered I don't have to be on stage twelve months a year. I've decided to go and dig some other jungles for a couple of weeks." Amburn added in 1992, "Janis was trying to kick heroin in Brazil, and one of the nicest things about George was that he wasn't into drugs."

Joplin began using heroin again when she returned to the United States. Her relationship with Niehaus soon ended because of his witnessing her shooting drugs at her new home in Larkspur, California, her relationship with Peggy Caserta, who also was an intravenous addict, and her refusal to take some time off work and travel the world with him. Around this time she formed her new band, the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The band was composed mostly of young Canadian musicians and featured an organ, but no horn section. Joplin took a more active role in putting together the Full Tilt Boogie Band than she did with her prior group. She was quoted as saying, "It's my band. Finally it's my band!"

The Full Tilt Boogie Band began touring in May 1970. Joplin remained quite happy with her new group, which received mostly positive feedback from both her fans and the critics. Prior to beginning a summer tour with Full Tilt Boogie, she performed in a reunion with Big Brother at the Fillmore West in San Francisco on April 4, 1970. Recordings from this concert were included in an in-concert album released posthumously in 1972. She again appeared with Big Brother on April 12 at Winterland where she and Big Brother were reported to be in excellent form. By the time she began touring with Full Tilt Boogie, Joplin told people she was drug-free, but her drinking increased.

From June 28 to July 4, 1970, Joplin and Full Tilt joined the all-star Festival Express tour through Canada, performing alongside the Grateful Dead, Delaney and Bonnie, Rick Danko and The Band, Eric Andersen and Ian and Sylvia. They played concerts in Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary. Footage of her performance of the song Tell Mama in Calgary became an MTV video in the early 1980s and was included on the 1982 Farewell Song album. The audio of other Festival Express performances was included on that 1972 Joplin In Concert album. Video of the performances was included on the Festival Express DVD.

In the Tell Mama video shown on MTV in the 1980s, Joplin wore a psychedelically colored loose-fitting costume and feathers in her hair. This was her standard stage costume in the spring and summer of 1970. She chose the new costumes after her friend and designer, Linda Gravenites (whom Joplin had praised in the May 1968 issue of Vogue), cut ties with Joplin shortly after their return from Brazil, due largely to Joplin's continued use of heroin.

During the Festival Express tour, Joplin was accompanied by Rolling Stone writer David Dalton, who would later write several articles and a book on Joplin. She told Dalton:

Pearl

Among her last public appearances were two broadcasts of The Dick Cavett Show. In a June 25, 1970, appearance, she announced that she would attend her ten-year high-school class reunion. When asked if she had been popular in school, she admitted that when in high school, her schoolmates "laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state." In the August 3, 1970, Cavett broadcast, Joplin referred to her upcoming performance at the Festival for Peace to be held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York, on August 6, 1970.

Joplin attended the reunion on August 14, accompanied by fellow musician and friend Bob Neuwirth, road manager John Cooke, and her sister Laura, but it reportedly proved to be an unhappy experience for her. Joplin held a press conference in Port Arthur during her reunion visit. Interviewed by Rolling Stone journalist Chet Flippo, she was reported to wear enough jewelry for a "Babylonian whore." When asked by a reporter during the reunion if Joplin entertained at Thomas Jefferson High School when she was a student there, Joplin replied, "Only when I walked down the aisles." Joplin denigrated Port Arthur and the people who'd humiliated her a decade earlier in high school.

Joplin's last public performance, with the Full Tilt Boogie Band, took place on August 12, 1970, at the Harvard Stadium in Boston, Massachusetts. A positive review appeared on the front page of The Harvard Crimson newspaper despite the facts that Full Tilt Boogie performed with makeshift sound amplifiers after their regular equipment was stolen in Boston and Joplin was reportedly so intoxicated when she took the stage, she was only able to perform two songs.

During late August, September and early October 1970, Joplin and her band rehearsed and recorded a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, who had produced recordings for The Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was still enough usable material to compile a long-playing record.

The result of the sessions was the posthumously released Pearl (1971). It became the biggest selling album of her career and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of Kris Kristofferson's Me and Bobby McGee. Kristofferson had been Joplin's lover in the spring of 1970. The opening track Move Over was written by Joplin, reflecting the way that she felt men treated women. Also included was the social commentary of the a cappella Mercedes Benz, written by Joplin, Bob Neuwirth and beat poet Michael McClure. The track on the album features the first and only take that Joplin recorded. 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 included as an instrumental. In 2003, Pearl was ranked #122 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Joplin checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel on August 24, 1970, which was located in Hollywood Heights near Sunset Sound Recorders where she began rehearsing and recording her album. During the sessions, Joplin continued a relationship with Seth Morgan, a 21-year-old UC Berkeley student, cocaine dealer and future novelist who had visited her new home in Larkspur, California several times in July and August. She and Morgan became engaged to be married in early September even though he visited Sunset Sound Recorders for just eight of the many sessions when Joplin worked, much to her dismay. Much later Morgan told biographer Myra Friedman that as a non-musician he felt excluded while in the studio. He stayed at Joplin's Larkspur home for days at a time while Joplin stayed alone at the Landmark, although several times she visited Larkspur to be with him and to check the progress of renovations she was having done on the house.

Peggy Caserta claimed in her 1973 book Going Down With Janis that she and Joplin had decided mutually in April 1970 to stay away from each other to avoid enabling each other's drug use. Caserta, a former Delta Airlines stewardess and owner of a clothing boutique in the Haight Ashbury, said that by September 1970 she had resorted to smuggling marijuana throughout California and she checked into the Landmark that month because it attracted drug users. Joplin learned of Caserta's presence in Los Angeles and staying at the same hotel from a heroin dealer who made deliveries to the Landmark. Joplin begged Caserta for heroin and within a few days became a regular customer of that heroin dealer.

Joplin's manager Albert Grossman and his assistant Myra Friedman had taken part in an intervention with Joplin the previous winter. While they worked at Grossman's New York office during the Pearl sessions, they knew Joplin was staying at a Los Angeles hotel but did not know it attracted drug users and dealers.

Death

The last recordings Joplin completed were on October 1, 1970 — Mercedes Benz and a birthday greeting for John Lennon, the Dale Evans Happy Trails. Lennon, whose birthday was October 9, later told Dick Cavett that her taped greeting arrived at his home after her death. On Saturday, October 3, Joplin visited Sunset Sound Recorders in Los Angeles to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites' song Buried Alive in the Blues prior to recording the vocal track, scheduled for the next day. At some point on Saturday, she learned by telephone that Seth Morgan was staying at her home and using her pool table with other women he had met that day. In the studio she was heard expressing anger about this and about Morgan having broken a promise to visit her the previous night, although she also expressed joy about the progress of the sessions. She and band member Ken Pearson went from the studio to Barney's Beanery for drinks. After midnight, Joplin drove him and a male fan who tagged along to the Landmark Motor Hotel.

When Joplin failed to show up at Sunset Sound Recorders for the next recording session by Sunday afternoon, producer Paul A. Rothchild became concerned. Full Tilt Boogie's road manager, John Cooke, drove to the Landmark. He saw Joplin's psychedelically painted Porsche 356C Cabriolet in the parking lot. Upon entering her room, he found her dead on the floor beside her bed. The official cause of death was an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol. Cooke believes that Joplin had accidentally been given heroin which was much more potent than normal, as several of her dealer's other customers also overdosed that week. Peggy Caserta admitted that, like Seth Morgan, she, too, had promised to visit Joplin at the Landmark on Friday night, October 2 and had stood her up in order to party with drug users who were staying at another Los Angeles hotel. According to Going Down With Janis, Caserta learned from the dealer who sold heroin to her and Joplin that on Saturday Joplin expressed sadness about two friends having abandoned her the previous night.

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. The only funeral service was a private affair held at Pierce Brothers and attended by Joplin's parents and maternal aunt.

Joplin's will funded $2,500 to throw a wake party in the event of her demise. Around 200 guests received invitations to the party that read, “Drinks are on Pearl,” a reference to Joplin’s nickname. The party, which took place October 26, 1970, at the Lion's Share, located in San Anselmo, California, was attended by Joplin's sister Laura, fiancé, Seth Morgan and close friends, including tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, Bob Gordon, and road manager John Cooke. Brownies laced with hashish were passed around.

Legacy

Joplin's death in October 1970 at the age of 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world. Her death was coupled with the fact that another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, had died sixteen days earlier in September. Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice." Music columnist Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable." Author Megan Terry claimed that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in the ability to captivate an audience.

In 1973, a book about Joplin by her publicist Myra Friedman was excerpted in many newspapers. At the same time, Going Down With Janis by Peggy Caserta attracted a lot of attention with its opening line, which graphically referred to her performing a sex act with Joplin while they were stoned on heroin in September 1970. Joplin's bandmate Sam Andrew much later described Caserta as "halfway between a groupie and a friend." According to an early 1990s statement by a close friend of Caserta who also knew Joplin, Caserta's book Going Down With Janis angered the Los Angeles heroin dealer she described in detail to her readers, including the make and model of his car. A "carful of dope dealers," wrote Ellis Amburn, visited, in 1973, a Los Angeles lesbian bar that Caserta had been frequenting since Joplin was alive. Amburn quoted Caserta's friend Kim Chappell, who happened to be in the alley behind the bar: "I was stabbed because, when Peggy's book came out, her dealer, the same one who'd given Janis her last fix, didn't like it that he was referred to and was out to get Peggy. He couldn't find her, so he went for her lover. When they realized who I was, they felt that my death would also hit Peggy, and so they stabbed me." Despite being "stabbed three times in the chest, puncturing both lungs," Chappell eventually recovered.

According to biographers Alice Echols and Myra Friedman, Peggy Caserta was one of many friends of Joplin who did not become clean and sober until a very long time after the singer's death, and others died from overdoses. One of her Big Brother bandmates got clean and sober as late as 1984. Caserta survived "a near-fatal OD in December 1995," wrote Echols. In 2000, Caserta appeared on-camera as a major source for a segment about Joplin on 20/20 (US television series).

Joplin's extraordinary success as a pioneer in a male-dominated rock industry of the late 1960s was unprecedented. Joplin, along with Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane, opened opportunities into the rock music business for future female singers. 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."

Joplin's body art, with a wristlet and a small heart on her left breast, by the San Francisco tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, is taken as a seminal moment in the tattoo revolution and was an early moment in the popular culture's acceptance of tattoos as art. Another trademark was her flamboyant hair styles, often including colored streaks and accessories such as scarves, beads and feathers. When in New York City, Joplin, often in the company of actor Michael Pollard, frequented Limbo on St. Marks Place. The performer, well known to the store's employees, made a practice of putting aside vintage and other one-of-a-kind garments she favored on stage and off.

Leonard Cohen's 1974 song "Chelsea Hotel #2" is about Joplin. Likewise, lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from his first solo album, Garcia, is about Joplin and the end of her suffering through death. Mimi Farina's composition "In the Quiet Morning", most famously covered by Joan Baez on her 1972 Come from the Shadows album, was a tribute to Joplin.

The 1979 film The Rose was loosely based on Joplin's life. Originally titled Pearl, after Joplin's nickname, and the title of her last album, it was fictionalized after her family declined to allow the producers the rights to her story. Bette Midler earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.

In 1988, the Janis Joplin Memorial, with an original bronze, multi-image sculpture of Joplin by Douglas Clark, was dedicated in Port Arthur, Texas.

Joplin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and was given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. In November 2009, the Hall of Fame and museum honored her as part of its annual American Music Masters Series. Among the artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum Exhibition are Joplin's scarf and necklaces, her 1965 Porsche 356 Cabriolet with psychedelically designed painting, and a sheet of LSD blotting paper designed by Robert Crumb, designer of the Cheap Thrills cover. She was the honoree at the Rock Hall's American Music Master concert and lecture series for 2009.

In the late 1990s, the musical play Love, Janis was created with input from Janis's younger sister Laura plus Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew, with an aim to take it to Off Broadway. Opening in the summer of 2001 and scheduled for only a few weeks of performances, the show won acclaim and packed houses and was held over several times, the demanding role of the singing Janis attracting rock vocalists from relative unknowns to pop stars Laura Branigan and Beth Hart. A national tour followed.

There have been many attempts at making a film about Joplin. On June 13, 2010, producer Wyck Godfrey said Amy Adams starred in director Fernando Meirelles' biographical drama, titled Janis Joplin: Get It While You Can. Previous attempts have included Piece Of My Heart, which was to star Renée Zellweger or Brittany Murphy; The Gospel According To Janis, with director Penelope Spheeris and starring either Zooey Deschanel or P!nk; and an untitled film thought to be an adaptation of Laura Joplin's Off-Broadway play about her sister, with the show's star, Laura Theodore, attached.

Joplin had a profound influence on many singers. Florence Welch of Florence and The Machine spoke of Joplins impact on her own musical prowess in an interview for Why Music Matters in a commercial against piracy:

Discography

; Big Brother and the Holding Company

! Title !! Release date !! Label !! Notes
	1967	Mainstream Records
Big Brother and the Holding Company	1967?	Columbia	Contains 2 extra single tracks
Big Brother and the Holding Company	1967, CD 1999		Contains 2 extra single tracks
	1968
Cheap Thrills	1968, CD 1999		Contains 4 extra tracks
Live at Winterland '68	1998		ASIN: B000007TSP

; Kozmic Blues Band

! Title !! Release date !! Label !! Notes
I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!	1969
I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!	1969, CD 1999		Contains 3 extra tracks

; Full Tilt Boogie Band

! Title !! Release date !! Label !! Notes
	1971		posthumous, 4x Multi-Platinum RIAA
Pearl	1971, CD unknown date
Pearl	1971, CD 1999		Contains 4 extra tracks
Pearl	1971, 2CD 2005		CD1 – 6 other extra tracksCD2 – full selection from The Festival Express Tour, 3 venues

; Big Brother & the Holding Company / Full Tilt Boogie

! Title !! Release date !! Label !! Notes
	1972		ASIN: B0000024Y7

; Later collections

! Title !! Release date !! Label !! Notes
Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits	1973		ASIN B00000K2W1, 7x Multi-Platinum RIAA
	1975
Anthology	1980		2 discs
Farewell Song	1983	Columbia Records	ASIN: B000W44S8E
Cheaper Thrills	1984	Fan Club	ASIN: B000LYA9X8
	1993	Columbia Legacy	3 discs – ASIN: B00000286P
18 Essential Songs	1995	Columbia Legacy	ASIN: B000002B1A, Gold RIAA
The Collection	1995	3 Discs	ASIN: B000BM6ATW
Live at Woodstock: August 19, 1969	1999
Box of Pearls	1999		5 Discs – ASIN: B0009YNSK6
Super Hits	2000	Sony	ASIN: B00004T1E6
Love, Janis	2001	Sony	ASIN: B00005EBIN
Essential Janis Joplin	2003	Sony	ASIN: B00007MB6Y
Very Best of Janis Joplin	2007	Import	ASIN: B000026A35
The Woodstock Experience	2009	Legacy Recordings

References

Further reading

Amburn, Ellis. Pearl: The Obsessions and Passions of Janis Joplin: A Biography. NY: Warner Books, 1992. ISBN 0-446-39506-4.

Caserta, Peggy. Going Down with Janis: Janis Joplin's Intimate Story. Dell: 1974. ASIN: B000NSBNMI.

Dalton, David. Piece of my Heart: A Portrait of Janis Joplin. NY: Da Capo Press, 1991. ISBN 0-306-80446-8.

Echols, Alice. Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin. NY: Henry Holt, 1999. ISBN 0-8050-5394-8.

Friedman, Myra. (1973). Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-00160-2.

ISBN 1-878923-08-0

Joplin, Laura. Love, Janis. NY: Villard Books, 1992. ISBN 1-888358-08-4.

Stieven-Taylor, Alison. Rock Chicks. Sydney: Rockpool Publishing, 2007. ISBN 978-1-921295-06-5.

External links

Biography at The Handbook of Texas Online

JohnGilmore.com: Spotlight on Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin's Kozmic Blues - janisjoplin.net

Re-introducing Janis Joplin - slideshow by The New York Times

Artwork created by Janis Joplin, from her family

Artistic performances

Raise Your Hand Ed Sullivan Show - March 16, 1969

Work Me Lord Woodstock - August 18, 1969

Half Moon Dick Cavett Show - August 3, 1970

Category:1943 births Category:1970 deaths Category:Alcohol-related deaths Category:American blues singers Category:American child singers Category:American female singers Category:American rhythm and blues singers Category:American rock singers Category:American soul musicians Category:Drug-related deaths Category:Big Brother and the Holding Company members Category:Bisexual musicians Category:Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery Category:Deaths by heroin overdose in California Category:Female rock singers Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Musicians from Texas Category:People from Austin, Texas Category:People from Beaumont, Texas Category:People from Port Arthur, Texas Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees‎ Category:University of Texas at Austin alumni Category:Lamar University alumni

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