IN the late summer of 1968, Big Brother and the Holding Companyhad nearly finished recording "Cheap Thrills" when Janis Joplin, the band’s singer, slipped the drummer Dave Getz a set of lyrics she’d handwritten to accompany a piano riff he had been practicing. The song, "Can’t Be the Only One," with words by Joplin and music by Mr. Getz, was something of a parting gift. Within days, Joplin gathered her band mates in a room at the Chelsea Hotel and announced that she was going solo.

This April Mr. Getz, still drumming with Big Brother, released "Can’t Be the Only One," the first solo album of his career, which includes two versions of the bluesy title song. Mr. Getz had 500 copies of the CD made, selling them through iTunes and other Internet sites.

As he expected, Mr. Getz immediately heard from Joplin’s heirs: "I got an e-mail saying, ‘You can’t do this. Anything involving the Joplin estate has to go through us.’ " Not for the first time throughout an often contentious four-decade relationship with the Joplin family, Mr. Getz sought legal advice, and he was assured of his rights as the song’s co-author, he said.

Joplin died of a heroin overdose at 27, alone in a Los Angeles motel room in the early morning hours of Oct. 4, 1970. Yet "Can’t Be the Only One" is one of the few projects coinciding with the 40th anniversary of her passing.

"We don’t celebrate her death," said Laura Joplin, the singer’s sister, who controls the Joplin estate with her brother, Michael Joplin. "We celebrate her life."

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