Charlie Parker vs Janis Joplin
Two music prodigies, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
The record, side by side
| Charlie Parker | Janis Joplin | |
| Field | Music | Music |
| Sub-field | Jazz | Composer |
| Born | 1920 | 1943 |
| Died | 1955 | 1970 |
| Country of birth | United States | United States |
| Star sign | Virgo | Capricorn |
Who they are
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. was born on August 29, 1920, in Kansas City, Kansas, and grew up across the river in Kansas City, Missouri, in a city that pulsed with jazz at every hour of the day and night. The Kansas City of Parker's youth was a wide-open town, operating under the corrupt but musically fertile patronage of political boss Tom Pendergast, and the music that thrived there — hard-swinging, blues-drenched, built for all-night cutting sessions — formed the soil in which Parker's genius took root. He began playing alto saxophone at age eleven and joined…
Full biography of Charlie Parker →
Janis Joplin
In June 1967, at the Monterey International Pop Festival in California, a twenty-four-year-old woman from Port Arthur, Texas, walked onto an outdoor stage with a psychedelic blues band called Big Brother and the Holding Company and sang "Ball and Chain" — a song originally recorded by Big Mama Thornton in 1952 — with such ferocity that the audience of 7,000 people went silent in the middle of the song before erupting at its close. Seated in the audience was Mama Cass Elliott of the Mamas and the Papas, one of the most commercially successful acts…
Full biography of Janis Joplin →
What they share
- Both are held here under Music.
- Both born in United States.
- Their lifetimes overlap.
Where they part
- 23 years separate their births (1920 and 1943).
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Charlie Parker or Janis Joplin?
- Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker was born in 1920, Janis Joplin in 1943.
- What field is each of them in?
- Charlie Parker is filed under Music (Jazz). Janis Joplin is filed under Music (Composer).
- Were they contemporaries?
- Yes - their lifetimes overlap.