I’ve heard her singing praised. One critic said that she sounded as though she were singing in harmony with herself.
And let us not forget the Mercedes Benz song.
That reminds me of nothing so much as the time Danielle Brisebois sang “I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate” at Kelsey’s bar (in All In The Family). Wish I could find a clip of it.
Ball And Chain was Janis at her howling blues best. The live performance at Monterey left even Cass Elliot stunned.
Joplin was a great singer and few were better at belting out emotions.
Unfortunately, her style of singing is out of fashion nowadays. People expect a smooth voice, and her roughness is hard to understand if you’re used to the modern women singers. But she’s strongly in the tradition of growly blues singers.
Janis was one of the greatest rock singers in the blues-derived tradition. She had both the passion and the voice to tear into a song.
In her day, she was rightfully compared to the great blues singers such as Bessie Smith: “Nobody Knows You When You Are Down And Out” - Bessie, Janis
Two Many Cats, If you like Me & Bobbi McGee, you should look for her quieter, blues songs, or something like her rendition of Summertime
Fun fact- she grew up to be a middling recording artist but highly succesful songwriter, cowriting two top 5 hits for Natasha Bedingfield, songs for dozens of other top artists and getting a Academy award nom for the song “Lost Stars”.
I enjoyed Janis and liked several of her songs. I didn’t care much for Prince either, but of course I can still recognize his talent and skill.
However, the best singer ever in the world is Alecia Beth Moore. I will accept no arguments against this opinion. 
I enjoyed Janis in my youth, and owned all her major releases on LP. When I started switching over to CDs in the mid-80s (I was in my mid-20s), I never bothered to replace the Janis albums. She’s not on my Spotify list, either.
Jimi Hendrix also too. I can spin all those discs in my head; never need to hear them again.
I wonder what she would be like now if she hadn’t died.
Old.
Actually, underground cartoonist Justin Green used to do one-pagers called “Musical Legends” for a record-shop magazine, and portrayed her as a wooly-haired hipster grandmother driving the kids to a soccer game and entertaining them by singing “Mercedes Benz.”
We tend to romanticize celebrities who lived wild and died young, going all the way back to James Dean. I think it magnifies and maintains their fame over time.
Yes, but old asshole like David Crosby, old zombie-on-life-support like Keith Richards, old timer turned trump Republican like Nugent or Charlie Daniels, old relic touring casinos, or old legend but still dead like Tom Petty?
Grace Slick Old.
As I recall, Janis grew up hearing Bessie Smith records at home and would try to imitate her sound.
I find that there are many occasions when she over-cooks the soul side of her vocals, as if making more noise and more distortion makes more souls, and it does not.
When she was more restrained then she was great, its when she is trying hard that it does not work.
Soul is a style, not a decibel level.
Another one that was guilty of this was Wilson Pickett and same applies when he sticks to singing instead of forcing it, then it works so much better.
You forgot “Firefly”.
I can’t think of any Wilson Pickett songs where he sings with “noise and distortion.” Could you elaborate?
Joplin was one of those artists who was absolutely fabulous when experienced live… but not so much in recordings. I saw her live two or three times, and was totally blown away. But her recordings are basically screeching.
She, like The Dead, was a concert phenomena. More or less they only play 2 or 3 Joplin songs on the media: “Me and Bobby McGee” which isnt screaming, except maybe at the end, “Piece of My Heart”, and Mercedes Benz.
I never watched her live, but I did get to two Dead concerts and the experience is nothing like listening to canned music. And i dont mean the drugs, I mean the sound.