Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Janis Joplin trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Janis Joplin trivia quiz follows the Texas outsider who became the biggest female rock star of the 1960s. It starts in Port Arthur with the Texaco engineer's daughter who was bullied at Thomas Jefferson High, discovered Bessie Smith and Lead Belly through a friend's records, hitchhiked to San Francisco with Chet Helms in 1963, and came home weighing 88 pounds. It then covers her recruitment into Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Monterey Pop breakthrough, the raw, glass-smashing Cheap Thrills album and its eight weeks at number one. The second half takes in the Kozmic Blues Band, the 2 a.m. Woodstock set she refused to let into the film, the Tampa arrest for swearing at police, the Dick Cavett appearances, the Festival Express train across Canada, the Full Tilt Boogie Band, the headstone she paid for at Bessie Smith's unmarked grave, and the Pearl sessions with Paul Rothchild that ended at the Landmark Motor Hotel on October 4, 1970. It finishes with Me and Bobby McGee at number one, Mercedes Benz recorded in one take, The Rose, the Hall of Fame, the stamp and the Broadway show. Questions range from easy to expert. Every answer was checked against the Wikipedia articles on Janis Joplin and the album Pearl.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Texas city was Janis Joplin born on January 19, 1943?
Port Arthur
Her father Seth was an engineer at Texaco and her mother Dorothy a registrar at a business college; she had two younger siblings, Laura and Michael.
Q 02Which future Pro Football Hall of Fame coach was Janis Joplin's high-school classmate?
Jimmy Johnson
She later said her Thomas Jefferson High schoolmates 'laughed me out of class, out of town and out of the state'.
Q 03Which blues singer did Janis Joplin most often cite as an influence and later help buy a headstone for?
Bessie Smith
Smith's grave had been unmarked; Joplin mailed a cheque after a phone call, and the AP said she 'shared the cost' with nurse Juanita Green.
Q 04What was the headline of the July 1962 Daily Texan profile of Janis Joplin at the University of Texas?
She Dares to Be Different
The article noted she went barefoot, wore Levi's to class and carried her Autoharp everywhere in case she felt like singing.
Q 05With which friend did Janis Joplin hitchhike from Texas to San Francisco in January 1963?
Chet Helms
Three years later Helms, by then managing Big Brother and the Holding Company, sent Travis Rivers to Austin to bring her back to join the band.
Q 06Which future Jefferson Airplane guitarist recorded blues with Janis Joplin in 1964 over a clacking typewriter?
Jorma Kaukonen
His wife Margareta was typing; the session surfaced years later as the bootleg The Typewriter Tape.
Q 07What was Janis Joplin's favourite alcoholic drink?
Southern Comfort
She was a heavy drinker throughout her career and had a reputation in mid-1960s San Francisco as a 'speed freak'.
Q 08How much did Janis Joplin weigh when she returned to Texas in spring 1965?
88 pounds
She swore off drugs, adopted a beehive hairdo and enrolled at Lamar University in Beaumont.
Q 09On what date did Janis Joplin join Big Brother and the Holding Company?
June 4, 1966
Her first show with them was at the Avalon Ballroom; her parents only learned she was in San Francisco, not Austin, when a letter arrived.
Q 10Which Grateful Dead founding member had a short relationship and long friendship with Janis Joplin?
Pigpen McKernan
She also lived for a few months in 1967 with Country Joe McDonald, who wrote the song 'Janis' at her request.
Q 11Which small label signed Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1966?
Mainstream Records
Their debut album on the label came out in August 1967, and Columbia later reissued it with 'featuring Janis Joplin' on the cover.
Q 12At which June 1967 event did Janis Joplin and Big Brother make their breakthrough appearance?
Monterey Pop
D. A. Pennebaker's Monterey Pop film premiered at Lincoln Center in December 1968 and helped make her a star.
Q 13Which was the only track on Cheap Thrills actually recorded in front of a paying audience?
Ball and Chain
The album kept a raw feel anyway, including the sound of a glass breaking and being swept up during 'Turtle Blues'.
Q 21To which country did Janis Joplin travel in February 1970, where she was photographed at Carnival?
Brazil
She was romanced there by fellow tourist David Niehaus, who left after seeing her shoot up back home in Larkspur, California.
Q 22What was the Full Tilt Boogie Band briefly called before it was renamed in 1970?
Main Squeeze
It was made up mostly of young Canadians who had played with Ronnie Hawkins, and Joplin declared, 'Finally it's my band!'
Q 23How much did the Hells Angels pay Janis Joplin to perform at their San Rafael party in May 1970?
$240
The Angels had known her since 1966; Big Brother, now fronted by Nick Gravenites, opened the show for 2,300 people.
Q 14How many weeks did Cheap Thrills spend at number one on the Billboard 200?
Eight
It reached the top eight weeks after release and produced the hits 'Piece of My Heart' and 'Summertime'.
Q 15What was the name of the first backing group Janis Joplin put together after leaving Big Brother?
Kozmic Blues
It was modelled on Stax-Volt soul revues and included saxophonist Snooky Flowers and ex-Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew.
Q 16At roughly what time did Janis Joplin finally take the stage at Woodstock on Sunday, August 17, 1969?
About 2:00 a.m.
She had waited ten hours backstage, drinking and shooting heroin with Peggy Caserta; Pete Townshend later wrote that 'even Janis on an off-night was incredible'.
Q 17With which pregnant folk singer did Janis Joplin fly by helicopter into the Woodstock site?
Joan Baez
Baez recalled Joplin going giddy at the sight of the crowd; the two later watched Hendrix's closing set from Joe Cocker's van.
Q 18Why was Janis Joplin's performance left out of the 1970 Woodstock film and soundtrack?
She was unhappy with it and insisted it be excluded
The 25th-anniversary director's cut finally included her 'Work Me, Lord'.
Q 19In which Florida city was Janis Joplin arrested for 'vulgar and indecent language' in November 1969?
Tampa
She was found guilty and fined $200 plus court costs after shouting 'Don't fuck with those people!' at officers doing crowd control.
Q 20With which singer did a drunk Janis Joplin duet at the Rolling Stones' Thanksgiving 1969 show?
Tina Turner
Ike and Tina Turner were the opening act; her publicist Myra Friedman said she was 'so drunk, so stoned, so out of control'.
Q 24What was the 1970 tour on which a train carried Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and The Band across Canada?
Festival Express
They played Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary; footage of her 'Tell Mama' in Calgary became an early MTV video.
Q 25On which TV host's show did Janis Joplin announce in 1970 that she would attend her high school reunion?
Dick Cavett
She went on August 14 with Bob Neuwirth, her road manager and her sister Laura, and reportedly had a miserable time.
Q 26Where did Janis Joplin give her last public performance, on August 12, 1970?
Harvard Stadium in Boston
The band played on makeshift amplifiers after their gear was stolen, and the Harvard Crimson still gave it a front-page rave.
Q 27Which producer, best known for his work with the Doors, oversaw the Pearl sessions in Los Angeles?
Paul Rothchild
Joplin approved and arranged all nine tracks she sang on, and the album had a far more polished sound than her earlier records.
Q 28What was the last song Janis Joplin recorded, completed in a single take on October 1, 1970?
Mercedes Benz
She had written it with Bob Neuwirth in a bar between two shows at the Capitol Theatre, partly inspired by a Michael McClure poem.
Q 29Which track on Pearl is an instrumental because Janis Joplin died before recording the vocal?
Buried Alive in the Blues
Writer Nick Gravenites was offered the chance to sing it as a tribute but declined, later cutting it with Big Brother instead.
Q 30Where in Hollywood was Janis Joplin found dead on October 4, 1970?
The Landmark Motor Hotel
She had checked in on August 24 to be near Sunset Sound Recorders; road manager John Byrne Cooke found her.