By the end of that song, though, Janis sounds like she's already running a little out of breath. She still sounds great on the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody," but you can tell she's also slowing down, if even by just a touch. Even so, her voice still sounds pretty damned amazing.
The other rub though is with the band itself. Great musicians that they are, there are just too many of those horn-heavy arrangements here. They also play at such a breakneck pace, that Janis occasionally seems to have a tough time keeping up with them.
That pace slows on a meandering arrangement of "Summertime" — a song which is normally one of Janis' show stoppers — but here again it's a case of too much band and not enough Janis. To her credit, Janis still belts it out like a trooper though.
But on a cover of Otis Redding's "Can't Turn You Loose," Janis is nowhere to be heard at all. When you have an instrument as great as the voice of Janis Joplin, why would you emphasize anything else?
The set closes with versions of the Big Brother staples "Piece Of My Heart" and "Ball And Chain" which although decent sounding enough, come nowhere near the classic versions heard on the Cheap Thrills album. The former, once again, is just too busy with the horn arrangements and sounds rushed as a result. The latter suffers from too many starts and stops by the band, in comparison to the slow-building intensity of the Big Brother version.
For historical value though, the performance here certainly serves its purpose well enough. It's just hard not to make comparisons to the already familiar versions of some of these songs, particularly given the rather radical left turn Janis took with the horns and with the bigger band.
The Woodstock Experience series, including this set by Janis Joplin, arrives both digitally and in stores on Tuesday June 30.
Next up, we close out our series with Johnny Winter.
Article comments
1 - Scott Reno
I have waited since I was about 13 (1975) to finally hear this concert live (now may we see the footage?...it has been 40 years!).
I have to admit I have all but 2 of the songs from the live set, from previously released material. I know from the movie "Janis-The way she was"-1975 that Janis did sing on "Can't turn you loose", which I loved, but was very disppointed it's missing on this CD. It's well worth it for any Janis fan...I am Janisfied!
Thank you for the great story as well.