“Piece of My Heart” by Erma Franklin

"Piece of My Heart" belongs to Erma Franklin first. Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns wrote it, Berns produced it and Garry Sherman arranged it, and the gospel-and-soul singer cut the original in 1967, taking it to number 10 on the R&B chart that December. Her recording came back around in 1992 on the EP (Take a Little) Piece of My Heart.

In 1968 Big Brother and the Holding Company, with Janis Joplin singing, turned the song into a much bigger hit, and in the wake of that Franklin's original picked up a Grammy nod in the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance category.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.