( JANIS JOPLIN’s Greatest Hits)-classic blues/rock music -G5-LP

	A$		30
	$		20

DESCRIPTION ITEM: VINYL 12” LP 33 1/3rpm
ARTIST: JANIS JOPLIN
TITLE: JANIS JOPLIN’s Greatest Hits
COUNTRY PRINTED: OZ
CAT No: See scan
COVER: (Grade at EXCELLENT+)
LABELS: (Grade at NEAR MINT)
VINYL: (Grade at EXCELLENT+ to NEAR MINT-)
TRACKS:
"Piece of My Heart" (Bert Berns, Jerry Ragovoy) – 4:14
"Summertime" (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Dubose Heyward) – 4:02
"Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" (Ragovoy, Chip Taylor) – 3:57
"Cry Baby" (Berns, Ragovoy) – 4:00
"Me and Bobby McGee" (Fred Foster, Kris Kristofferson) –
"Down on Me" (Janis Joplin) – 3:09
"Get It While You Can" (Ragovoy, Mort Shuman) – 3:27
"Bye, Bye Baby" (Powell St. John) – 2:37
"Move Over" (Joplin) – 3:44
"Ball and Chain" (Big Mama Thornton) – 7:59
COMMENT:
Review: http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/33855/Janis-Joplin-Janis-Joplins-Greatest-Hits/

Review Summary: A collection of songs that truly defines why Janis Joplin is a legend.

Born in 1943, a young Janis Joplin strived for attention from day one. “She was unhappy and unsatisfied without [receiving a lot of attention],” Joplin’s mother, Dorothy Joplin said. Janis grew to become friends with the outcasts of her hometown Port Arthur, Texas. These friends led Joplin to blues music, a genera that would change her life forever. Soon a teenage Janis joined the local choir discovering her unique vocal abilities with a bluesy range that would later make her famous. After later graduating college and experimenting with several different recordings of her own music Janis decided to break free of Texas and move out to California where her vocal ability landed her as the leading lady of the psychedelic rock group Big Brother And The Holding Company.

With the group Joplin gained all time fame, this fame though brought the classic lifestyle of a musician: sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, thereby giving Janis the rightful crown of a hard-time drug addict. Soon this lifestyle caught up with Joplin though and after failing to show up at rehearsal one day a producer drove to her motel and fond Janis dead of a heroin overdose, tragically only at age twenty-seven.

Even though she died young, Joplin left behind a collection of now-classic blues/rock music recorded solo and with the band. Ten of these songs were compiled in 1973, three years after her death. This collection became known as the properly titled, Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits.

The first of these is Piece Of My Heart, a song originally written and recorded for gospel singer, Erma Franklin, but the song didn’t reach mainstream success until a more rock version of the song was recorded by Joplin and her band. The song opens with a loud and bouncy electric guitar riff that cuts quite when Joplin chimes in with a soft spoken, “Didn't I make you feel like you were the only man/well yeah/An' didn't I give you nearly everything that a woman possibly can ?” After which she suddenly breaks out into her classic rough voice singing, “I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it/Take another little piece of my heart now, baby,” with a strong rock flair and strong emotion. When Joplin isn’t singing the powerful guitar takes stand and rips and roars back and forth equaling out to an incredible work of art.

Sumertime takes a slower, more bluesy feel than Piece Of My Heart. The majority of the song is just slow and soft vocal work that uses Joplin’s easily recognizable voice to its potential over a little acoustic guitar work. Occasionally another electric guitar riff is broken out, but not one as emotionally charged as Piece Of My Heart. The song while emotionally frail, just does not harness everything it promises. Sumertime gets quickly surpassed by Try (Just A Little Bit Harder). Another bluesy song with more saxophone instrumentation other than the previous guitar riffs. The song has Janis crying, “Try,” then drifting off with, “just a little bit harder,” with backing male vocals echoing behind.

Joplin takes a more folk edge with Me & Bobby McGee sounding like a Bob Dylan female counterpart. The song features gospel-like organ work and simple bass notes with acoustic guitar over Joplin’s calm, yet strong, vocals. “From the Kentucky coal mines to the California sun/Hey, Bobby shared the secrets of my soul/Through all kinds of weather, through everything we done, Hey Bobby baby? kept me from the cold.” the message behind the song is Joplin telling about loving and losing her love, Bobby. Distinctly different from the previous Me & Bobby McGee is an obvious inclusion in this collection because of its unique sound compared to most other Joplin songs.

Once more Joplin takes another rock edge with Move Over, featuring many of the same elements of Piece Of My Heart except this one uses more instrumentals in the band other than the obvious guitar. Move Over takes the spotlight off Joplin for awhile as the instrumentals are stronger her than any other song on this collection. The guitar riff is distinctive and piano and cymbals are drawn in to give the song a more epic and loud feel that slowly builds to the songs climax of Joplin singing loud and rough constantly using her vocals to their highest potential.

It seems incredible that in just years a person like Janis Joplin and her band could formulate such music that some bands can never figure out. While the band is powerful, Joplin constantly gets the spotlight due to her distinctive voice that overpowers everything else. Joplin has gone down in history as a blues and rock legend. This is a rightfully deserved title clearly noticed in just these ten songs.

Biography: by Richie Unterberger
The greatest white female rock singer 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 her era. She also did much to redefine the role of women in rock with her assertive, sexually forthright persona and raunchy, electrifying on-stage presence.

Joplin was raised in the small town of Port Arthur, TX, and much of her subsequent personal difficulties and unhappiness has been attributed to her inability to fit in with the expectations of the conservative community. She'd been singing blues and folk music since her teens, playing on occasion in the mid-'60s with future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen. There are a few live pre-Big Brother recordings (not issued until after her death), reflecting the inspiration of early blues singers like Bessie Smith, that demonstrate she was well on her way to developing a personal style before hooking up with the band. She had already been to California before moving there permanently in 1966, when she joined a struggling early San Francisco psychedelic group, Big Brother & the Holding Company. Although their loose, occasionally sloppy brand of bluesy psychedelia had some charm, there can be no doubt that Joplin -- who initially didn't even sing lead on all of the material -- was primarily responsible for lifting them out of the ranks of the ordinary. She made them a hit at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, where her stunning version of "Ball and Chain" (perhaps her very best performance) was captured on film. After a debut on the Mainstream label, Big Brother signed a management deal with Albert Grossman and moved on to Columbia. Their second album, Cheap Thrills, topped the charts in 1968, but Joplin left the band shortly afterward, enticed by the prospects of stardom as a solo act.

Joplin's first album, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, was recorded with the Kozmic Blues Band, a unit that included horns and retained just one of the musicians that had played with her in Big Brother (guitarist Sam Andrew). Although it was a hit, it wasn't her best work; the new band, though more polished musically, was not nearly as sympathetic accompanists as Big Brother, purveying a soul-rock groove that could sound forced. That's not to say it was totally unsuccessful, boasting one of her signature tunes in "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)."

For years, Joplin's life had been a roller coaster of drug addiction, alcoholism, and volatile personal relationships, documented in several biographies. Musically, however, things were on the upswing shortly before her death, as she assembled a better, more versatile backing outfit, the Full Tilt Boogie Band, for her final album, Pearl (ably produced by Paul Rothchild). Joplin was sometimes criticized for screeching at the expense of subtlety, but Pearl was solid evidence of her growth as a mature, diverse stylist who could handle blues, soul, and folk-rock. "Mercedes Benz," "Get It While You Can," and Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee" are some of her very best tracks. Tragically, she died before the album's release, overdosing on heroin in a Hollywood hotel in October 1970. "Me and Bobby McGee" became a posthumous number one single in 1971, and thus the song with which she is most frequently identified.

VINYL GRADING SYSTEM

MINT:
RECORD: New condition with no surface marks or loss of sound quality.
COVER: New condition with no surface marks, creases or wear.
NEAR MINT:
RECORD: Barely noticeable surface mark with no loss of sound quality.
COVER: Barely noticeable surface mark/ wear.
EXCELLENT:
RECORD: Some signs of being played with extremely little if no loss of sound quality.
COVER: Slight wear or creasing.
VERY GOOD:
RECORD: Obviously been played with noticeable surface marks & the occasional light scratches but exhibits no major loss of sound quality.
COVER: Noticeable wear on cover, seam or spine.
GOOD:
RECORD: Very obviously been played with very noticeable surface marks & exhibits major loss of sound quality.
COVER: Noticeable folding, scuffing of spine or edges, splits in seams or spine or fading of colour.
FAIR:
RECORD: Still just playable & exhibits considerable surface noise.
COVER: Major tears, wearing, splits & stains.
POOR:
RECORD: Will not play properly due to scratches etc.
COVER: Very badly damaged.
+(PLUS)/-(MINUS):
Slightly up or down in condition as appears in the comments above.
NOTE:
Gradings are done visually unless there appears to be a questionable surface mark on the vinyl, it is then put on the turntable to check. A comment describing the outcome will appear if this is the case.

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