Born on January 19, 1943, Janis Joplin grew up in Port Arthur, Texas. Culturally conservative and bourgeois, the mid-sized oil refinery city was a protected environment for Janis and her younger brother and sister. She wrote poems, painted and sang in the local church choir. Then came the problems of adolescence…

Gaining weight, battling acne and teased by her classmates, Janis stayed by herself and neglected school. Feeling that she didn’t belong, she began to demonstrate it by wearing men's clothes. Finding consolation and meaning in art and music, she discovered the blues and made music with a few friends. After high school, she trained as a secretary and enrolled in college twice but dropped out.

This picture from the family album shows Janis playing and singing folk songs and was taken shortly before she went to California to become a singer. Janis Joplin gave her first public performance in Texas — at an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center, of all places.

Alcohol and drugs were the accompaniment to her singing career from the beginning. She sang in clubs and made recordings with Jorma Kaukonen, the guitarist in Jefferson Airplane. It was a shaky start to a career in music, however. Usually drunk, stoned or both, she was called "Speed Freak." She returned to Texas after a couple of years.

After a short stay in Texas, it was back to San Francisco. Settling in the hippie district of Haight Ashbury, she joined forces with Big Brother and the Holding Company, a blues band. With them, Janis developed her unique hoarse and soulful singing style. The debut album came in 1967. Along with Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones, she stunned audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival.

The following album, "Cheap Thrills," was Joplin's first major recording success. She hurled her songs into the microphone so furiously that it almost hurt. The Holding Company began to hold back and really accompany Janis. Her first chart hits came in 1968, "Piece Of My Heart" and "Ball And Chain," and the album went gold. Janis Joplin had become a star — and a figurehead of the hippie movement.

After Big Brother and the Holding Company, Janis looked for a band with musicians of a quality equal to her voice. The Kozmic Blues Band was founded with a bunch of excellent musicians, but it was too big. After the record "I Got Them Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama," the group was thinned out and then went by the name of The Full Tilt Boogie Band.

Janis' short and turbulent life also saw a brief time in police custody. Having threatened a policeman with physical violence, she spent a night in jail. Her lawyer managed to free her, arguing that she had the right to freedom of expression. Later, she had to pay a fine for swearing and obscene behavior onstage.

Janis's flamboyant personality, her loud, dirty laugh, sociability and lots of alcohol attracted hangers-on like moths to a flame. She had intimate encounters with both sexes, and her free lifestyle inspired feminists. Party scenes like this one are shown in the 2015 documentary "Janis: A Little Girl Blue" by director Amy Berg.

If the party was over and no one was available for the night, she could always rely on Southern Comfort. The whisky manufacturer gave her $15,000 for having publicized the brand. This picture taken after a concert doesn't show an advertising model but instead the loneliest person in the world.

Janis Joplin lived her life as excessively as did her male counterparts Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. All three lived short, intense lives, had burgeoning careers and died at age 27 — and all three within a short space of time.

Janis Joplin died on October 4, 1970 of an overdose of heroin. Accident or suicide? It's said that she hadn't known that she'd taken a highly concentrated dose of the drug. Blues singer Eric Burdon of The Animals summed it up: "The queen of the blues didn't die of an overdose of heroin, but of an overdose of Janis."

Janis Joplin's career lasted a mere four years. She died in 1970 after overdosing on heroine at the age of 27. But she had already become an undisputed star of blues and rock.

The documentary film, "Janis: Little Girl Blue," premiered last fall at the Venice Film Festival and has since been viewed in cinemas around the world. It opens in Europe and Japan on January 14, 2016. The film relies both on archival footage and clips never seen before. It also includes interviews with people who knew Joplin well.

"Janis: Little Girl Blue" chronologically tells the story of a young woman growing up in conservative Texas in the 1960s. Feeling like she doesn't belong there, she moves to the West Coast and becomes an icon of rock music and the hippie movement.

The documentary captures the advent of the hippie movement in the US. Historical footage shows how Janis Joplin, who would've turned 73 on January 19 this year, became a focal point of popular culture. She rose to fame at an time when traditional norms were being challenged and the US was in the midst of the Vietnam War.

The documentary was filmed by American director Amy Berg, who has an Oscar nomination to her name ("Deliver Us from Evil," 2006). She approaches Janis Joplin's story with a mix of enthusiasm and sobriety.

She was known for being "electric" on stage, which the film conveys, and for playing multiple instruments. Offstage, she fought countless battles - with her own unstable personality, her desire for love and recognition, and the cut-throat music business.

Amy Berg quotes from numerous letter Janis Joplin wrote to her parents in Texas. They make clear that the young woman was not just a passionate musician, but also a sensitive and vulnerable person.

Like several other rock legends, Janis Joplin died at age 27. That's just one thing she has in common with the late soul singer Amy Winehouse. "Janis: Little Girl Blue" is a historical documentary that is still relevant in our time.