This was back when someone great and relevant to the artist was chosen to give an induction speech and did a great job.

this is how an induction is supposed to be,great job melissa,janis is smiling down on us,and you.

Melissa's speech was from the heart. She told Janis' truth, Janis never tried to be "Miss Perm & Proper" & I loved her because she took a little piece of my heart...R.I.P Sweet Lady, Love Ya, Pearl

One of the best speeches I've heard.

Janis Joplin was one hot, hip lady that anyone who loves life would want to be around. Her interviews and music were out of this world, how I miss her wonderful voice R.I.P.

That had to be one of the best induction speaches if not the best - Janis would of loved it from the heart ❤️ it was real

Janis lives in our hearts 😍

Janis was one of a kind. She was mesmerizing onstage! I saw her twice when I was 18. Still in love. Her music does heal my soul to this day.

Just watched this n 2020 and it still resonates to this day.

Outstanding speech. The part that touched my heart the most was hearing how she went back to port Arthur and tried to change who she really was. I’m so glad you couldn’t do it Janis. Thank you for showing us all the real you. You still give me goosebumps when I watch your videos on you tube. I hope you are at peace and I hope you found out how just how many of us still love you.

jmo but that background on Janis' was absolutely perfect and Melissa delivered it with such sensitivity and respect and honor to Janis and her presence as the whole and unique person and musical icon Janis was. Excellent.

Amazing speech. Janis was the best! Keep Calm and Rock On Janis!!!!!

Janis hated TX but loved CA and OHIO,,.Janis still lives in our hearts,,Rest in God's loving arms your gone but not from our hearts,

Melissa did phenomenal

What a great speech for a true legend of music!!! Great job, Melissa 👍🏻

I miss that era. I left home @ 15 and moved to San Francisco. I'm so glad I did. I learned life is what you make it. Enjoy everyday. Thanks Janis RIP.

Well spoken! Janis' spirit lives on in all of us who love her.

What a gorgeous tribute.

If there was one person that I could hang out with it would be Janis Joplin the things that she would say. Imagine what she would be doing today for music. I loved everything about her. Her style her voice her mind. What a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul. My God bless her always...

I can't remember the first time I heard Janis but I know I loved her immediately. I was a child and music was magic to me then, as it still is.

WOW that was such a Heart warming Tribute from Melissa Etheridge Janis Joplin was and always will be a Living LEGEND

Great tribute... Janis spoke her truth and lived her truth... Have no doubt - she would have LOVED it! (RIP, honey! It would blow your mind if you had any idea of the ever-present memories of you that lives in the hearts of the millions of us who have always loved you.)

I Love Her Speech😍

I don't think it was disrespectful,Janis wasn't fake,so i think she would agree,she never lied about her troubles with drugs,she was realistic and thue!

Very well said, ms. Ethridge!!!

Im a huge fan of Janis her voice was incredible her music is just great rock on Janis in heaven RIP girl love you and your music

Such a pretty tribute. She was all said her and so much more.

This is a wonderful tribute to Janis.

I always said I feel her blues!

She didn't know. The dealer had gotten a very potent batch of it and didn't test it on himself as he normally did. Street heroin is usually about 3% pure, whereas this batch was at least 40% pure. Eight others overdosed that very same weekend from this batch.

I would have said the same words. Pearl, Gone but never forgotten.

JJ deserved this a long time ago, She didnt know how she became the first for women"s rights regardless what she did to her body but it never healed the pain in her heart. So unfair, life was so unfair to this beautiful soul. Miss her so badly.

She lived the way she wanted and I'm ok with that. She was a beautiful person just the way she was!!!! Love you janis!!!

We miss you Pearl..Happy Birthday wherever you are!!

Nice tribute. No holding back. I like it.

Janis would've been very moved by that speech I think. Very well done.

Cutie pie!So glad she got to this!

Excellent speech. A little long but, hey, Janis deserves it!

My heart aches from decades of Janis not being physically with us. But I have her music. We all do. That’s good too.

Melissa did a wonderful job speaking about her idol, Janis Joplin. Janis was in a class of her own. There will never be another Janis Joplin!! She sung from her heart and soul! RIP Janis!!❤️❤️❤️🌹🌹🌹🌹.

Thank you Melissa

Melissa, you are amazing too and beautiful!

Only one Janis. Saw her twice. 69 west palm beach, 70 Ravinia, Highland Park. Heart and soul of rock and roll. She was real. Great speech. Janis was the spirit of the 60s. She stood against tyranny.

beautiful!

Wow beautiful ❤

Janis Joplin Died way before her time

Give some respect to the Queen of Rock n Roll, Janis Joplin.

SHE PREACHED....SHE LET US SEE THE WAY THE WORLD REALLY IS... SHE IS OUR HERO

@Ladyluck2806 Melissa is the one RESPONSIBLE for Janis' induction. Who better to do the speech?

One of the greatest speeches

My cat´s name: JANIS. Long Live JJ. From Argentina. :-)

well said

I would trade all of my tomorrows, for one single yesterday. God, how that line just gets me. I feel the same way.

PERFECT RIP JJ

And she still is, my unlucky, little girl blue. . .

An honest speech.

Damned she is nervous...also saw a snip once but never the full version...thnks so much

@Scampergirl The theory is that she was mistakenly given a stronger variety of heroin than she was used to and she took her normal amount.

It takes Melissa and Joss to make one Janis and still cant touch her but no one else comes close...Gone too soon but what a Hell of a legacy she leaves behind

Wow! I'm Canadian!! I live in Ontario

Thanks Janis for buying Bessie's tombstone; a class act and tribute to the blues.

What an amazing tribute you gave to Janice I know that she's smiling down from heaven with tears in her heart of love for Melissa she's be so proud to be standing next to you and giving you the biggest hugs and stay in rock on my name is Bonnie Foerster I live in South Jordan Utah had a partnership is 51 years the only partner I ever had her name was Bev and now she is my true soulmate in heaven meatball sub Janice I remember when she passed away she lived a very hard life and you are so right she would do all those amazing things he said she would she would be leading the gay rights right in front God bless you for your beautiful words and Mia tribute to her Janis Joplin sleep well with the angels❤🌈❤

Melissa is soooooooooooooooooo beautiful! And now an icon. Her music inspires us gays:) Thank You Melissa!

Melissa Janis her idol❤️

JANIS WAS THE BEST MOMMY MOST OF US HAD.

very personal speach-didn´t have much to do with janis joplin actually this was all about melissa and how janis affected her.-

Melissa you loved her as we her fans do. Some things weren't said, like she wasn't racist, and growing up in Texas, that in itself made her a target that even her so cal)d bear friends ridiculed her, and NO ONE , not even her own family defended her as a child being malicious treated by classmates. . Or that she wasn't sleeping around at first, her friends were but not Janis. Or that she went back to Texas in '65. Because THE guy she was engaged to she truly loved, but he betrayed her and scammed her. But I do know from your speech that Janis moved you, and that you cared for her. Thanks for your gracious speech on Joplin. She more than deserved it.

What the hell took so long or is there a waiting period?

I think melissa is reading my book report from 11th grade 😊

i know the honesty may come across as harsh but this was Janis, This was a woman tough as nails with a sincere love who melted at Otis Redding (he was gone even younger) Baby Huey too, Duane Allman too.... very much so within the same 12 months. She bought that hedgestone for Bess. i've never cried like i have during this speech, Gregg was close, but this, shes my right hand. Every person past and present who feels the hippie attitude feels this. she was sincerely beautiful..... judge the music. because it was the f**king bees knees man. Passion 101= Janis Joplin.

When was this?

I've loved everything I've seen of Janis since the first time I heard "Cheap Thrills". Even on talk show interviews she shines life into the dead zone. I love Melissa Ethridge for almost all the same qualities Janis shined. That "almost" isn't about less or more, but just to note there's differences; both bring something the other doesn't. Her '94 Woodstock performance channeled Janis like I'd never imagined anyone could. I get it why folk treat her as an icon of self-empowerment -- not only for women. But I'd love to hear someone drop a word of appreciation for Big Brother and the Holding Company into these moments. No, they didn't last long enough to belong in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. But it wasn't as if they brought her to SF and then rode her coat tails. They supplied the free-flowing powerhouse blues setting for her powerful presence. They willingly shifted shape from being an anarchist hippie music collective to being her backup band, which could easily have turned into an ego wars thing, and while she shined as much as ever with her other 2 bands, the total package was nowhere near as good. I don't say, nor feel, she did her best work with them; just that they gave her a better setting to do what she did in. So, I'm not saying anybody SHOULD be saying so; just saying I'd like to hear it said. Big Brother and the Holding Company was her ideal musical launching pad -- a kickass band with heart, humor, soul, skill, originality and plenty of etc where all that came from. Part of why I loved Melissa's '94 Woodstock set channeling Janis was it felt like her band was channeling Big Brother. It ain't nostalgia. "Cheap Thrills" is still a source of goose bumps. And while their other albums belong on no Best 100 Albums of All Time list; there are some special gems with that characteristic '60s fixation on saying some things especially worth saying well. "Blind Man", for example, is classic, classy '60s SF, whether anyone knows it or not.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a movie made about Janis Joplin. Her parents did not like her being a hippy and a singer. The movie would more than likely be the movie of the year.

Great Eulogy as only a diva could.

I love you Janis I was a hippie in rhe 80s Today i dont share most of the liberal views . I feel sad today that you are not here and that you left so young.

What ever happened to Melissa Etheridge ?

Janis definitely deserved to be inducted in the R&R Hall of Fame. She deserved a far better inductance speech, one that focused on this wonderful woman's incredible talent. Too bad Melissa put words in Janis' mouth and made her out to be what Melissa wanted her to be. Nobody knows what Janis would have done later in life and what causes she would have supported. The R&R Hall of Fame is about honoring musical achievement, not political achievement.

well hot damn, she looks HOT..... adorable too, it was cute, the fact that she was nervous....

SHARE THIS WITH COURTNEY

we are who we are, the rules didn't work for Janis and she had an incredible life as a result, too bad it was a short one. I loved her, still do. her wild nature was an inspiration for all the girls who didn't fit in, including me. Janis' spirit will live on forever.

I was at a very small Melissa show. She walked in holding hands with gf. Gf stood by stage and I don’t think she ever blinked. The very split second the show was done gf grabs her hand and leads her off. It looked and felt incredibly insecure. Or like gf wanted to be part of the show. The end. This was 5 or 6 years ago. Melissa always made me feel icky

Her personal life was so sad. I believe her issues with drugs and alcohol came from the abuse she had to take growing up- even from her own mother .All of that,and her music career was a way of coping

a lot of comments here ripping Melissa's speech as all about Melissa becuz a couple sentences said she "likes to think" Janis's heart+mind were way bigger than the commenter's politics I guess that was Melissa's long autobio I just heard about Port Arthur & being an SF "hippie" what was that Dylan line? "You shouldn't let other people. get yr kicks for you"?

Nice tribute but she was not the" only goddess in a sea of rock gods". There was also Grace Slick

Did she say "and the grass"?

Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin were not done. They had hardly begun and had so much left to give. I think all three would have continued rising had they lived. Morrison was done. The Doors would have probably broken up or gone on decline, had Morrison lived. (my stupid opinion only.)

Melissa did well sad to a great woman Janis sad loss

@Ladyluck2806 i think it was an ok fit, but you're right, perhaps the wilson sisters from heart would've been better?

Yea,how that work out for her

I did not kno/1969 was bond 1958 to 1970 my brother future asset he smoked weed angel doss window pane as he said the best drug heroin He said he liked he said of the best drug going he was a musician

6:55 - I got a better idea. I wish she never did that shot of smack at all - or before.

Back in the forties fifties and sixties, a woman that was gay and Janis Joplin was gay, It was too hard for them to come out . She stayed in the closet. it's was not like today at that time!

They claimed they found her dead on October 4, 1970.

There was no one there to accept it or maybe spoke on behalf of Janis?

Janis was the ONLY white goddess... Tina Turner was a goddess in her own right & the 2 of them singing together was simply magical... Peace y'all

should have done a better job talking about Janis ! Janis Joplin the best !

yeah part of heart and Fleetwood Mac how many shoe you my name is Sheldon agree to cilcus I am Janis Joplin's daughter Delaney Len Joplin Joplin whoever-you-are Lynn Joplin Delaney Lynn Joplin

Couldn't get in to hear singing. The only song I liked was Me And Bobby McGhee

she didnt look different god made her the way she was she looked that way ecause of using drugs and drinking

i dressed funny, and they will throw rocks. plus, I was the queer kid