In Concert

by

Janis Joplin

Edit

My tattered copy of this album, that I purchased upon its release in '72, still gets played. I feel this is a great representation of the "live" Janis, and that many of the versions heard here are the best available. There just aren't any songs like "Flower In The Sun" anymore, it is my favorite example of the creative genius of Big Brother, other than "Farewell Song", which I wish was included here. This recording does include, however, my favorite version of the song that I feel best represents the incredible power of Janis' voice at its vocal peak, "Down On ME." To hear the bands brief warm-up on this song, with Janis chattering in the backround, as she steps up to the microphone, clears her throat.."Ahem...yes"...in her little Texas voice, and unleashes the first awesome notes, well... the goosebumps still appear to this day. To also hear the original released version of this song, a restrained, folksy studio rendition, and the couple of years later live version heard here... a whirling cyclone of un-fathomable intensity, is to hear two completely different songs. This collection, of Janis in all her incarnations, with the cover photo of her beautiful, jubilant smile, may be my favorite, it is the closest you will come to "touching her." Janis LIVES.

Since Joplin was known primarily as a live performer, her studio work was often viewed as a kind of compromise at best. Cheap Thrills had some live vocals and simulated a Big Brother concert effectively, but it never claimed to be the genuine (i.e. 'live') article.

So in 1972, about a year and half after her death, Columbia assembled these tracks from several different live performances with Big Brother and Full Tilt Boogie. It's "live,"--although some of the Big Brother tracks, notably "Down On Me" sound like they may have been doctored a bit--but somehow it doesn't quite convey the excitement of a Joplin concert the way "Cheap Thrills" did.

There are several great moments though. "All Is Loneliness" is completely recast here. Where it had been a kind of an eerie chant, with a brief vamp, on the Mainstream lp, it now is now an extended vocal improvisation--among the best on record. Someone once said that no one sang the words "lonely" or "loneliness" with as much feeling as Janis. This track bears that assertion out.

Although I loved "Pearl" and had great respect for the musicianship of Full Tilt, Joplin in Concert helps make the case for those who insist that Big Brother showcased Joplin in a way that her other bands could not match. She sounds like she's having the time of her life on "Road Block" and "Flower In the Sun." "Ego Rock" from a 1970 reunion concert has her in a classic blues one-upmanship battle with Nick Gravenites. She sounds much less strained here than on the Full Tilt Boogie tracks (also from '70). The FTB numbers, culled from tapes made during a Canadian train tour in the summer of '70, seem rawer than the Big Brother sides. It may have been a riotous time, but vocally, all that partying seems to have taken its toll. She tries to reach those high notes at the end of "Try," but she just can't pull it off. If these were the only extant tracks from her last days, you probably would have justified in saying that her voice was shot. The fact that she would go into the studio a few months later and record the triumphant "Pearl" proves otherwise.