Janis Joplin

This set of archival recordings lets us witness the formation of arguably the most powerful and expressive voice in rock history. From the earliest known performances in the small bars of Texas to the first sessions with Big Brother to her mesmerizing live shows, Janis never left behind her raw roots. She drew upon them to impel emotional performances as if by exposing her pain she gained power over her past and transformed it into a gift. In these newly sourced pearls, we can hear as never before the birth and fast burning flame of Janis Joplin. Included are outtakes and unreleased songs from the 1968 "Cheap Thrills" studio sessions, demos for the 1969 Kozmic Blues album and vast improvements on all existing vintage (1962-65) live recordings. The vintage recordings, in particular, are wonderful and although we had some of this material from the long out of print "Janis" movie soundtrack vinyl release, this collection has 39 (!) tracks recorded between 1962-65 including the ubiquitous "Typewriter Tapes" made by Jorma. The fourth CD unchains the urgent expression and lets it be heard in a complete Big Brother concert from 1967.

As well as being one of the finest rock singers of the 1960s, Janis Joplin was also a great blues singer, making her material her own with her wailing, raspy, supercharged emotional delivery. First rising to stardom as the frontwoman for San Francisco psychedelic band Big Brother & the Holding Company, she left the group in the late '60s for a brief and uneven (though commercially successful) career as a solo artist. Although she wasn't always supplied with the best material or most sympathetic musicians, her best recordings, with both Big Brother and on her own, are some of the most exciting performances of the era.

As well as being one of the finest rock singers of the 1960s, Janis Joplin was also a great blues singer, making her material her own with her wailing, raspy, supercharged emotional delivery. First rising to stardom as the frontwoman for San Francisco psychedelic band Big Brother & the Holding Company, she left the group in the late '60s for a brief and uneven (though commercially successful) career as a solo artist. Although she wasn't always supplied with the best material or most sympathetic musicians, her best recordings, with both Big Brother and on her own, are some of the most exciting performances of the era.

Janis Joplin is one of the most revered and iconic rock & roll singers of all time, a tragic and misunderstood figure who thrilled millions of listeners and blazed new creative trails before her death in 1970 at age 27. This soundtrack to the acclaimed documentary, Janis: Little Girl Blue, showcases Janis at her very best and features brand new liner notes from Oscar nominated Director & Producer Amy Berg, rare, vintage photos and reproductions of letters written by Janis as detailed throughout the documentary.

As a soundtrack to the documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue, this 2016 album does its job, providing an aural biography to complement the visual one. The 17 tracks are sequenced chronologically – the exception being the title track, pulled from I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! and functioning as a coda here – so it's possible to hear her raw talent evolve from an early performance of "Careless Love" to a heavy dose of Big Brother & the Holding Company and on to her solo work. Although Big Brother's "Down on Me" and her lone Top 10 hit "Me and Bobby McGee" are here in their familiar studio versions, this soundtrack is populated by live tracks, many pulled from expanded reissues, so this functions almost as an alternate history: it tells the story through versions that aren't readily familiar. Also, these versions seem somewhat more rare than they actually are – any dedicated Janis fan likely has all of the cuts here somewhere in their collection – which speaks to how thoroughly the vaults have been combed. That said, this does a good job of rounding up some of the best rarities and presenting them in a fashion that's appealing to a broader audience.

Jorma Kaukonen (later of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna) met a singer named Janis Joplin at a party in San Jose, California, in the fall of 1962. In the years that followed, Janis called on Jorma to accompany her at gigs. As they continued to play together, the Bay Area was changing musically and evolving into the legendary San Francisco scene that both Janis and Jorma would become a part of

Rock and roll's first female superstar, Janis Joplin showed that women could be rock singers. she is remembered as the best white blues singer of the 1960s. Famous for her incendiary stage performances, her masochistic tango with the bottle, her tumultuous love life, and her fatal dalliance with drugs, her musical legacy is also a part of Austin's history – how the disheveled folkie/UT student playing at west campus hootenannies and Kenneth Threadgill's bar on North Lamar took off for San Francisco with some other Texans in the Sixties and changed the history of rock & roll.