Janis Joplin flamboyant hair styles, which often included colored streaks, and accessories such as scarves, beads, and feathers. When in New York City, Joplin, often in the company of actor Michael J. Pollard, frequented Limbo on St. Mark's Place. Joplin, well known to the boutique's employees, made a practice of putting aside vintage and other one-of-a-kind garments she favored on stage and off. The Mamas & the Papas' song "Pearl" (1971), from their "People Like Us" album, was a tribute. Likewise, Leonard Cohen's song, "Chelsea Hotel #2" (1974), is about Joplin, and lyricist Robert Hunter has commented that Jerry Garcia's "Birdsong" from
Janis Joplin two October 1968 performances at a roller rink in Alexandria, Virginia, were reviewed by John Segraves of the conservative "Washington Evening Star" at a time when the Washington metropolitan area's hard rock scene was in its infancy. An opera buff at the time, he wrote, "Miss Joplin, in her early 20s, has been for the last year or two the vocalist with Big Brother and the Holding Company, a rock quintet of superior electric expertise. Shortly she will be merely Janis Joplin, a vocalist singing folk rock on her first album as a single. Whatever she does and whatever she