![]() I hesitate to call this one of her "best" because I like all of the others so much. On her best and sad last effort since Cheap Thrills, Janis connects with the Full Tilt Boogie band on "Me And Bobby McGee," "My Baby," "Get It While You Can" and "Half Moon," as the Pearl of Rock gathered up all her soul and emotion before the light went out. Gone but not forgotten, Janis Joplin leaves us with a voice on the edge of ruin, and producer Paul Rothchild's sure understanding of her place on disk. Janis hasn't exactly left us laughing since she's gone (to paraphrase Joni Mitchell), but she has left us with some good music and a few memories. The point is that Pearl would be a good record, well worth hearing and well worth owning, without the burden of having to serve as a final testament. What more is there to say? I wanted to make this an objective, unemotional review, without personal feelings, and I think I've succeeded (maybe not). I don't know how many other versions I've heard including one by its composer Kris Kristofferson, but none comes within light years of Janis' performance - a performance that is, to my ears, the best she has ever done on a recording. In front, it should be said that it is a super tune. "Move Over," "A Woman Left Lonely," and "Buried Alive in the Blues" are substantial performances, all of them traced with a musical "point" and control suggesting that - amazingly enough - Janis was on the verge, at least musically, of achieving some kind of maturity.Īnd finally, there is "Me & Bobby McGee". "Mercedes Benz" - an unaccompanied bit of sung doggerel "composed" by Joplin - is Janis dressed in her hard-boiled rock star costume it's the sort of performance that calls up the memory of an overcompensating young girl who wasn't the prettiest one at the party, but who was bloody well going to get her share of attention anyhow - and any way. "Get It While You Can" was an obvious choice for the final track - perhaps a little too obvious - and it pretty well demonstrates just why Janis reached out so effectively to listeners above and beyond the "youth audience" (whatever that is). And she did it with decency and honesty there were a lot of things I didn't like about some of Janis' music, but I never questioned her belief in it. Her real strength was rooted in an ability to synthesize her version of black blues into a commercially viable pop-rock music. I think she was finally coming to realize that all the crazy descriptions of her as the "new Bessie Smith," or even as a great blues singer, were off the mark. Janis always was happiest when she was grooving on music, and the Full Tilt Boogie band was the first group she'd worked with since Big Brother that provided the sort of driving, good-time-rock-blues background that would let her groove. So, a few months later, here it is - free, I hope, of most of the distracting emotions her death created in those who knew and loved her. I found it almost impossible to review this last Joplin recording with any degree of objectivity when it was first released.
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