Joplin Kaukon

Not to state the obvious, but the reality is that The Pearl Sessions by Janis Joplin is primarily for completists and musical historians. That's fine; given its design and contents it appears it was meant to be. The two-disc package includes the original album and mono 45 masters of six of its tracks - including "Me & Bobby McGee," "Move Over," and "Get It While You Can." These are interesting, but they don't hold a candle to the stereo album mixes. It's the second disc that holds the fan treasures. The studio banter by Joplin, producer Paul A Rothchild, and the Full-Tilt Boogie Band is priceless. It offers proof of Joplin's exacting standards when it came to getting across the maximum emotional impact of a song, as well as her vulnerability - asking for guidance from Rothchild as to how to approach a particular take (he hands control right back to her)…

About half of this two-record set features Janis Joplin with Big Brother & the Holding Company in 1968, performing songs like "Down on Me" and "Piece of My Heart." The rest, recorded in 1970, finds her with her backup group, Full Tilt Boogie, mostly performing songs from I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Joplin puts herself out on-stage, both in terms of singing until her voice is raw and describing her life to her audiences. Parts of this album are moving, parts are heartbreaking, and the rest is just great rock & roll.

Whether it was singing with Big Brother And The Holding Company or with her Full Tilt Boogie Band, Janis Joplin had one of the most identifiable, most emotional and most soulful voices ever recorded. Coming to San Francisco from Texas in 1966, Janis soon had the music world’s total attention, simply blowing the audience away at Monterey in 1967 while fronting Big Brother and gaining a record deal with Columbia Records in the process. After that, it was hit after hit with songs like her signature Piece Of My Heart, Cry Baby, and her Number One take of Kris Kristofferson’s present day standard Me And Bobby McGee, all included here. Through it all, Janis Joplin established herself as one of the very best and one of the most important singers and song interpreters ever to hit the music scene.

Columbia has managed to squeeze an impressive, perhaps excessive, number of compilations out of Janis Joplin's relatively slim body of recordings. With this two-CD set, The Essential Janis Joplin, the label's at it again, though it's a good one to get if you don't want to collect all the Joplin releases, and certainly don't want to get the expensive Joplin boxes, but want more than what fits onto a single disc. Including both solo recordings and highlights of her stint with Big Brother & the Holding Company, it has all the songs fans and critics would consider milestones in her career: "Ball and Chain" (a version recorded live in 1967 at the Monterey Pop Festival, not the more familiar one from Cheap Thrills), "Piece of My Heart," "Down on Me," "Summertime," "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)," "Tell Mama" (the live 1970 performance from the expanded edition of Pearl)…

Sony Legacy re-released four classic Janis Joplin LPs originally on Columbia – Big Brother & the Holding Company, Cheap Thrills, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, and Pearl – as a four-disc set available on 180-gram vinyl. The cover art was re-created from the original LP jackets.