Oh, Pearl. A self-described high school “misfit” who went on to become one of the most powerful and best-known vocalists of her time, Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose on this day in 1970, just 27 years old. As a teenager, her blues influences included Leadbelly and Big Mama Thornton. Here she is singing Bessie Smith’s “Black Mountain Blues.” And, from 1968 in Germany, watch here tear out another “Piece of My Heart.”