Who recorded it first
Me and Bobby McGee
Not a Joplin original — a 1969 Roger Miller record
This is a case where the cover became so definitive that both the writer and the first performer slipped out of public memory. Almost everyone takes ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ for a Janis Joplin original, but Joplin’s 1971 version is a cover. The song was written by Kris Kristofferson (with Fred Foster) and first recorded by country star Roger Miller in 1969. Joplin cut her version days before her death in 1970; released posthumously in January 1971, it became her only No. 1.
The record
Who recorded it first
How we traced it
The song was written by Kris Kristofferson with producer Fred Foster, who supplied the title — the character was named for a Monument Records secretary, Bobbie McKee, whose surname Kristofferson misheard. Roger Miller was the first artist to record it, in May 1969 Wikipedia ↗.
Miller’s country version reached No. 12 on the US country chart — a real hit, but a modest one that kept the song circulating without ever fixing it in the wider public’s memory.
Janis Joplin recorded her version in October 1970, days before her death, and never heard it released. Issued on Pearl in January 1971, it went to No. 1 and so completely became the definitive reading that most listeners now assume it was always hers Wikipedia ↗.
Wikipedia — the full song and recording historyKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
The attribution problem
Nothing about Joplin’s record is wrong or fake; it is one of the great vocal performances in rock. The only error is believing she originated it — a 1971 cover mistaken for the source.
‘It’s a Janis Joplin song’
Joplin’s 1971 version is a cover. Kris Kristofferson wrote the song and Roger Miller recorded it first, two years earlier, in 1969 the history ↗.
Roger Miller, 1969
Miller’s country single reached No. 12 — a real hit, but modest enough, and in a different genre, that Joplin’s version could eclipse it completely.
Kris Kristofferson
Kristofferson wrote the song with Fred Foster; he is neither the original performer nor the one who made it famous. Authorship and performance are different things, and here they belong to different people.
Written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster, first recorded by Roger Miller in 1969, and made famous — but not originated — by Janis Joplin, whose posthumous 1971 version reached No. 1 the record ↗.
Context
Why the cover ate the original
A cover eclipses its original most completely when the original was a modest hit in a different genre. Roger Miller’s ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ was a country record that reached No. 12; solid, but not the kind of hit that fixes a song in the wider public’s memory. When Janis Joplin’s version arrived, there was little standing in its way.
What sealed it was timing and tragedy. Joplin recorded the song days before her death and never heard it released; when it went to No. 1 in early 1971, it arrived wrapped in the story of her loss. A performance that raw, attached to a story that final, stops sounding like a cover of anyone.
The record, in order
- Kris Kristofferson writes the song with Fred Foster (late 1960s).
- Roger Miller records it first, May 1969 → No. 12 US country.
- Janis Joplin records her version in October 1970, days before her death.
- Released on Pearl, January 1971 → US No. 1, her only chart-topper.
- The 1969 original fades from public memory; the song becomes ‘a Janis Joplin song’.
Joplin recorded it days before she died and never heard it released; it went to No. 1 without her.