Janis Joplin Honored With Lifetime Achievement Award at 47th Annual Grammy Ceremony

NEW YORK (Legacy Recordings/ www.legacyrecordings.com) - As an enduring testament to both her accomplishments as a recording artist and her influence on every generation of rock, soul and blues performers that have followed her, Columbia recording artist Janis Joplin has been elected to receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.

The Lifetime Achievement Award is a Special Merit Award presented by a vote of the Recording Academy's National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artist significance to the field of recording. It will be presented at the 47th annual Grammy Awards ceremonies, to be held this Sunday, February 13, 2005, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The awards will be broadcast on the CBS television network (and around the world), 8:00-11:30 p.m. (EST/PST).

THE ESSENTIAL JANIS JOPLIN, the 2-CD, 30-song anthology that arrived in stores two years ago on Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, stands as the defining representation of Janis' entire recording career - which spanned less than four years. From her seminal beginnings with San Francisco's Big Brother & the Holding Company in 1966-67 ("Down On Me," "Coo Coo," "Women Is Losers," "Bye, Bye Baby") to her final sessions in 1970 (the Pearl album, with "Me and Bobby McGee," "Mercedes Benz," "A Woman Left Lonely," "Get It While You Can," and more), Janis' incandescent legend is immortalized on this collection.

Released as part of Legacy's best-selling Essential series in advance of her 60th birthday (which would have been celebrated on January 19, 2003), THE ESSENTIAL JANIS JOPLIN gathered album tracks, single sides, and live material (both released and previously unreleased) comprising over two hours of music.

In her liner notes to THE ESSENTIAL JANIS JOPLIN, writer Holly George-Warren paraphrases a fellow journalist and photographer who knew Joplin in her early days in Austin, Texas: "Janis belted blues like no white girl I had ever heard," she said. "Janis was unforgettable - she was an amazing talent - the first I had encountered. She flew in the face of the perfect '50s homemaker. Women just didn't behave like that back then - she was bold, brassy, lusty, more thirsty for life than liquor. She could be vulnerable and touching as well, looking for approval, and then be funny as hell... Janis burned bright to show us the way."