With today being Janis Joplins birthday we have a 2nd classic album of the day. The 2nd classic album is Pearl (1971) by Janis Joplin. Pearl is the second solo studio album by Janis Joplin, released posthumously on Columbia Records in January 1971. It was also released simultaneously in a 4 channel Quadraphonic format in the U.S. and in Japan. It was the final album with her direct participation, and the only Joplin album recorded with the Full Tilt Boogie Band, her final touring unit. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard 200, holding that spot for nine weeks. It has been certified quadruple platinum by the RIAA. Janis Joplins second masterpiece (after Cheap Thrills), Pearl was designed as a showcase for her powerhouse vocals, stripping down the arrangements that had often previously cluttered her music or threatened to drown her out. Thanks also to a more consistent set of songs, the results are magnificent -- given room to breathe, Joplins trademark rasp conveys an aching, desperate passion on funked-up, bluesy rockers, ballads both dramatic and tender, and her signature song, the posthumous number one hit Me and Bobby McGee. The unfinished Buried Alive in the Blues features no Joplin vocals -- she was scheduled to record them on the day after she was found dead. Its incompleteness mirrors Joplins career; Pearls power leaves the listener to wonder what else Joplin could have accomplished, but few artists could ask for a better final statement. [The 1999 CD reissue adds four previously unreleased live July 1970 recordings: Tell Mama, Little Girl Blue, Try, and Cry Baby.] The album has a more polished feel than the albums she recorded with Big Brother and the Holding Company and the Kozmic Blues Band due to the expertise of producer Paul A. Rothchild and her new backing musicians. Rothchild was best known as the recording studio producer of The Doors, and worked well with Joplin, calling her a producers dream. Together they were able to craft an album that showcased her extraordinary vocal talents. They used Sunset Sound Recorders in Los Angeles. The Full Tilt Boogie Band were the musicians who accompanied her on the Festival Express, a concert tour by train of Canada, in the summer of 1970. Many of the songs on this album were recorded on the concert stage in Canada two months before Joplin and the band started their Los Angeles recording sessions. The band also appeared twice on The Dick Cavett Show. They also played many American cities, both before and after Festival Express, although no recordings of those concerts have been officially released. All nine tracks that she sings on were personally approved and arranged by Joplin. Pearl features the number one hit Me and Bobby McGee, on which she played acoustic guitar, written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster; Trust Me, by Bobby Womack, written for Joplin; Howard Tates Get It While You Can, showcasing her vocal range; and the original songs Move Over and Mercedes Benz, the latter co-written by Joplin, Bobby Neuwirth and Michael McClure. Joplin sang on all tracks except Buried Alive in the Blues, which remained a Full Tilt Boogie instrumental because she died before adding vocals, but she approved the instrumental track. The recording sessions, starting in early September, ended with Joplins untimely death on October 4, 1970. Her final session, which took place on Thursday, October 1 after a break of several days, yielded her a cappella Mercedes Benz. The album cover, photographed by Barry Feinstein in Los Angeles, shows Joplin reclining on her Victorian era loveseat with a drink in her hand. A reissue of Pearl remastered for CD was released August 31, 1999. It included four previously unreleased live recordings from the Festival Express Tour, recorded on July 4, 1970, as bonus tracks. In 2003, the album was ranked number 122 on Rolling Stone magazines list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. A two-disc Legacy Edition appeared on June 14, 2005, with bonus tracks including a birthday message to John Lennon of Happy Trails, and a reunion of the Full Tilt Boogie Band in an instrumental tribute to Joplin. The second disc included an expanded set from the Festival Express Tour, recorded between June 28 and July 4, 1970. Move Over is the first track on the album and is also my favorite Janis Joplin song. The snarling blues riff copies the melody sung and written by Janis Joplin on this three minute and forty second performance which opens the Pearl album. Recorded on the same day as Trust Me and Me And Bobby McGee, September 25, 1970, fans got to see Joplin give a preview of this on the Dick Cavett Show prior to the release of Pearl. The subject matter concerns men, as Janis told Cavett. More specifically, the guy tells her its over, but keeps hanging around. Its a very driving, very direct rocking blues number, the singer equating the way some guys hold out on love to a carrot stick keeping the food inches away from the mouth of a mule. Please dont you do it to me, babe she - not begs - but demands - Honey, youre teasing me...I believe youre toying with my affections...I cant take it no more babe, and furthermore I dont intend to. The fading lyric is a bit salty/blasphemous with producer Paul Rothchild tucking the scat and bluesy wail inside the music as it concludes. The opening drum beat with Joplins vocal and the guitar makes for a powerful first track, the hook built inside the song and the riff when she repeats the line You know that I need a man. Different from anything else on the album, unlike the co-write that is Mercedes Benz, Janis wrote Move Over on her own. Cry Baby is a song originally recorded by Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters, in 1963, and later covered by rock singer Janis Joplin. Bert Berns wrote the song with Jerry Ragovoy. Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters recorded it for the United Artists record label. It topped the R&B chart and went to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1963, and paved the way for soul hits by Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding later in the decade. In September and October 1970, Janis Joplin recorded it for her album Pearl, posthumously released in 1971. The song was in blues-rock style and its producer was Paul A. Rothchild. On the single, the B-side was the hit Mercedes Benz. The song became usual in Joplins repertoire and today is often performed by many artists such as Joss Stone, Allison Iraheta, Magdolna Rúzsa. Joplins recording is the most popular version. The very precise Paul Rothchild production was the follow-up single to Me & Bobby McGee and is 3 minutes and 56 seconds long, compared to the 4:56 length of the out-take which has Janis asking at the end of the performance Is it a hit or a myth? Columbia Records single #45379 Cry Baby / Mercedez Benz is a tour-de-force that was a hit in different regions of the country, but didnt make the Top 40. The liner notes to the re-mastered Pearl album state it debuted on the Billboard charts 5/15/71, and stayed there for six weeks, peaking at #42. Almost as explosive as Piece Of My Heart, and written by the same duo, R & B producer Jerry Ragovoy who recorded the Garnet Mimms original version and Bang Records executive Bert Berns, (the original songwriting credit went to N.Meade/B.Russell, which was most likely a pseudonym for the pair), Janis gives us her passionately loud and tender sides which make this performance an endless thrill. A glimpse of Rothchilds glossy finish can also be gleaned from the rendition aired on radio as Janis doesnt hit all the notes precisely in the alternative take, but boy is she witty, and does she have a stylish soul all her own. It appears it took quite a bit of energy for her to get those vocal chords energized for that psychedelic scream in this song and the extended monologue in the middle is wonderful, just the tone of her voice and attitude during this segment speaks volumes. A truly great 27 year old blues singer with the insight of a spirit that has been around a lot longer, she lets it loose on Cry Baby, and the result is a magnificent artistic achievement. Me and Bobby McGee is a song written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster, originally performed by Roger Miller. Others performed the song later, including the Grateful Dead, Kristofferson himself, and Janis Joplin who topped the U.S. singles chart with the song in 1971 after her death, making the song the second posthumous number-one single in U.S. chart history after (Sittin On) The Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding. Billboard ranked Joplins version as the No. 11 song for 1971. The second posthumous number one single in the rock era (the first was Otis Reddings (Sittin On) The Dock of the Bay), Janis Joplins Me and Bobby McGee was a defining performance that remains her signature song. Penned by outlaw country singer/songwriter Kris Kristofferson, Joplins lover for a brief period of time, Me and Bobby McGee unites hippie-ish ideals of personal and romantic freedom with the wanderlust of Jack Kerouacs On the Road and a rootsy musical backdrop that links those concepts with the essence of America. The song was first covered by country star Roger Miller (best known for his hit King of the Road), and appears as the title track of Kristoffersons classic 1971 debut (which was actually issued a year earlier under the title Kristofferson, but repackaged to capitalize on Joplins massive success). However, Joplins shuffling, driving blues-rock version became the definitive one, not only for its passion and grit, but also because Joplin seemed to embody the character whose loss she lamented in the song. When many people think of Joplin, they often unconsciously compare her to Bobby McGee himself -- wild, nomadic, free-spirited, impossible to hold onto, yet unforgettable. Thats why Me and Bobby McGee holds such resonance in the wake of her death and makes such a fitting epitaph. The main point of the song is that the characters willingly sacrifice their relationship for the sake of their personal freedom. Both seem to want things from life that arent compatible with forming permanent attachments in their youth, and though they dont deny their feelings, neither are they bound by a sense of obligation or a romantic notion of forever. That love can be both fleeting and enduring, that the memories of a relatively brief contact can last a lifetime, that sometimes what a loved one needs is to move on, that real-life love does not necessarily equal a readiness to settle into a happily ever-after fairy tale -- the practicality of all this subtext feeds into the songs enduring popularity, especially among independent young women. Countless versions of Me and Bobby McGee have been recorded since Joplin topped the charts in 1971, mostly by country artists, but even though the song has become a standard, its still primarily associated with Joplin, and for good reason. Mercedes Benz is an a cappella song written by singer Janis Joplin with the poets Michael McClure and Bob Neuwirth, and originally recorded by Joplin. In the song, the singer asks the Lord to buy her a Mercedes-Benz, a color TV, and a night on the town. According to Bobby Womack, Joplin was inspired to come up with the lyrics after going for a ride with him in his Mercedes-Benz. It was recorded in one take on October 1, 1970, along with a couple of rowdy verses of Happy Birthday sung for John Lennon. These were the last tracks Joplin ever recorded; she died three days later, on October 4. The song appeared on the album Pearl, released in 1971. The song title, as listed on that album, contains no hyphen although the actual automobile brand name is hyphenated. In the lyrics of the song is a reference to Dialing for Dollars, a franchised format local television program, which required one to be watching the show in order to win. The song is considered a hippy-era rejection of consumerism. It may not have been intended to be totally sang without instrumental accompaniment, as a version exists on the Wicked Woman bootleg recorded at Harvard Stadium in Cambridge, MA, in August of 1970, allegedly the final concert performance of Joplin with her Full Tilt Boogie Band. The musicians add their individual flavors to the song during the live show, but it is the solitary click track on the studio version recorded October 1, 1970, possibly the final complete vocal take Janis put to tape, that is legend. Doors producer Paul A. Rothchild had recorded Jim Morrisons petition the Lord with prayer rant, and here Joplin does just that under Rothchilds guiding hand. Her simple request to the deity is a declaration which includes the great line Dialing for Dollars is trying to find me. Joplin, of course, got the answer to her prayer before praying it -- she could buy Porsches galore, but the charm of the one-minute-and-46-second moment is that it is this great blues singer talking to her fans in an endearing way, opening the song up with a statement: Id like to do a song of great social and political import -- it goes like this... The genius of Joplin is then unveiled, with perfect pitch, her raspy whiskey-soaked voice telling God how she got no help from my friends (which is an untruth, just listen to the shimmering beauty of the work of her friends on Pearl), but the great blues vocalist who had to overpower the acidic guitars of Big Brother & the Holding Company, who could sweetly phrase Bobby Womacks Trust Me, which follows this number, stands naked before the listener providing a clear picture of what a commanding presence her voice was, and the texture of that extraordinary instrument as well. The song is so popular that the brave at karaoke bars go up to the mic and emulate one of the greatest singers in rock history. Its Joplin throwing her fans a pearl where they, in under two minutes, can copy her entertaining personality. Can anyone name another short and sweet solo performance which has left such an indelible mark? The second to the last track is Trust Me. Songwriter Bobby Womack released this superb tune on his 1975 Safety Zone album, but in its form as the sleeper track on Janis Joplins 1971 Pearl album, Trust Me emerges with great power, a performance that is Janis at her absolute best. Her voice goes from sweet in the first couple of lines to raspy when she so knowingly issues lines like the older the grape, the sweeter the wine. Ken Pearsons organ works wonderfully alongside Bobby Womacks acoustic guitar and John Tills electric. Paul Rothchilds production work is simply amazing, choreographing this thick array of sounds and piecing them together perfectly, Brad Campbells bass and Richard Bells piano lines both dancing inside the changes. Listen to Clark Piersons definite drums as the song fades out, a solid team effort recorded on September 25, 1970, just a week and a half before Janis would leave us. In a small catalog of work, Trust Me shows what truly gifted art Janis Joplin brought to this world. Having Womack participating is a treat, the element of the songwriter working with the interpreter and their camaraderie as a major contribution to this definitive version cannot be overlooked. The creative energy is in these grooves and one doesnt have to imagine how magical the room must have been when this music was made. It translates very well. As Me & Bobby McGee has been overplayed, Trust Me has been underexposed. This key piece of the Pearl album concisely shows Janis Joplin as the equal of Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thornton, Billie Holiday, Otis Redding and her other heroes. At certain moments during this song Joplin eclipses even those gods.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 01:28:04 +0000
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