Janis Joplin

A raw nerve in a feather boa, she sang like she was trying to exorcise a demon and fall in love at the same time. She was the queen of the psychedelic blues, a woman who lived for the "one night of love" and the roar of the crowd. "Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got," she roared. She is the spirit of the unbridled feminine, a hurricane of grit and whiskey who proved that a woman's pain could be the most powerful music on earth.