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In 1969, Kris Kristofferson wrote a song that Roger Miller took to #12 on the U.S. Country Chart, while Gordon Lightfoot went to #1 with it on the Canadian Country Chart. "Me & Bobby McGee" was also recorded by nearly a dozen other male artists, including Kris himself, but none were released as singles.
As you can tell by the above paragraph, Kris originally wrote Bobbie as a female.
Then, in 1970, Janis Joplin recorded a gender-switch country/rock/blues version of it for her album "Pearl." A few days later, she was dead from a heroin overdose at age 27.
In 1971, the song was posthumously released as a single and it promptly went to #1 on Billboard's Ho t100...and #6 in Canada.
"Me & Bobby McGee then spent several years on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the Top 500 Songs of All Time, and they've currently ranked Janis herself as the 78th "Greatest Singer of All Time!"
From 1970, Here's "Me & Bobby McGee" on Greatest Hits 98.1
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