Track Listing

1. Down on Me
2. Bye Bye Baby
3. All Is Loneliness
4. Piece of My Heart
5. Road Block
6. Flower in the Sun
7. Summertime
8. Ego Rock - Nick Gravenites, Janis Joplin
9. Half Moon
10. Kozmic Blues
11. Move Over
12. Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)
13. Get It While You Can
14. Ball and Chain

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55915 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Live

Amazon.com
Overall an uneven album, In Concert's highest moments are sublime. The collection is culled from concerts with Big Brother and the Holding Company and Full Tilt Boogie. "All Is Loneliness," with Big Brother, was an improvisational vehicle for Joplin unlike any other, and no other performance of this tune, which conveys a terrifying loneliness, is even remotely similar. The version here was recorded at a 1970 reunion with Big Brother, and Joplin at one point--"There ain't no TV, no radio, no nothin', man"--simply rips your heart out. We're also treated to the impromptu 12-bar blues of "Ego Rock," wherein Nick Gravenites and Joplin toss blues lines back and forth in an affectionate but competitive repartee. Joplin was looped during the outdoor gigs with Full Tilt. A lot of tequila went down the hatch on the festival train that puffed its way across Canada in July of 1970. It was four months before Joplin died, and her Calgary performance of "Ball and Chain" is inspired, brilliant, drunk, uncanny, and frightening. It's like work from the other side. --Myra Friedman

Customer Reviews

Live, indeed.
My tattered copy of this album, that I purchased upon its release in '72, still gets played. I feel this is a great representation of the "live" Janis, and that many of the versions heard here are the best available. There just aren't any songs like "Flower In The Sun" anymore, it is my favorite example of the creative genius of Big Brother, other than "Farewell Song", which I wish was included here. This recording does include, however, my favorite version of the song that I feel best represents the incredible power of Janis' voice at its vocal peak, "Down On ME." To hear the bands brief warm-up on this song, with Janis chattering in the backround, as she steps up to the microphone, clears her throat.."Ahem...yes"...in her little Texas voice, and unleashes the first awesome notes, well... the goosebumps still appear to this day. To also hear the original released version of this song, a restrained, folksy studio rendition, and the couple of years later live version heard here... a whirling cyclone of un-fathomable intensity, is to hear two completely different songs. This collection, of Janis in all her incarnations, with the cover photo of her beautiful, jubilant smile, may be my favorite, it is the closest you will come to "touching her." Janis LIVES.

She had her vocal ups and downs...and ups
Since Joplin was known primarily as a live performer, her studio work was often viewed as a kind of compromise at best. Cheap Thrills had some live vocals and simulated a Big Brother concert effectively, but it never claimed to be the genuine (i.e. 'live') article.

So in 1972, about a year and half after her death, Columbia assembled these tracks from several different live performances with Big Brother and Full Tilt Boogie. It's "live,"--although some of the Big Brother tracks, notably "Down On Me" sound like they may have been doctored a bit--but somehow it doesn't quite convey the excitement of a Joplin concert the way "Cheap Thrills" did.

There are several great moments though. "All Is Loneliness" is completely recast here. Where it had been a kind of an eerie chant, with a brief vamp, on the Mainstream lp, it now is now an extended vocal improvisation--among the best on record. Someone once said that no one sang the words "lonely" or "loneliness" with as much feeling as Janis. This track bears that assertion out.

Although I loved "Pearl" and had great respect for the musicianship of Full Tilt, Joplin in Concert helps make the case for those who insist that Big Brother showcased Joplin in a way that her other bands could not match. She sounds like she's having the time of her life on "Road Block" and "Flower In the Sun." "Ego Rock" from a 1970 reunion concert has her in a classic blues one-upmanship battle with Nick Gravenites. She sounds much less strained here than on the Full Tilt Boogie tracks (also from '70). The FTB numbers, culled from tapes made during a Canadian train tour in the summer of '70, seem rawer than the Big Brother sides. It may have been a riotous time, but vocally, all that partying seems to have taken its toll. She tries to reach those high notes at the end of "Try," but she just can't pull it off. If these were the only extant tracks from her last days, you probably would have justified in saying that her voice was shot. The fact that she would go into the studio a few months later and record the triumphant "Pearl" proves otherwise.

Classic Janis that is Too Often Overlooked!
Janis Joplin put out a handful of studio albums in her lifetime, and there have since been scores of Janis compilations after her passing. This collection is unique in that it really shows how powerful Janis Joplin was in concert. Whether she belts out heartbreaking songs or raps with the audience, this album shows how much fun she must have been to see live.

I read her biography "Buried Alive" by Myra Friedman, who was one of Janis' managers. One of the things that sticks in my memory was that seeing Janis Joplin live was a "roll of the dice." When she was on her game, you would see a fantastic concert you would never forget. When she was having a bad night, it was a thorough disaster.

Many of us are too young to have seen Janis Joplin live, but this CD has probably captured some of her more prime moments. I mean, if these tunes were her off nights, then her good nights must have been the purest of epiphanies!

The album starts off hot with "Down On Me," a song she recorded
with Big Brother & the Holding Company. The studio version was good, but this live piece leaves the former in the dust! Ditto with "Bye, Bye Baby," a whimsical but almost upbeat song of lost love.

Before going into "All is Loneliness," she introduces the tune by telling the audience about Moondog, the 60s underground poet who penned the song. Moondog, who passed away in the past few years, is one of those counter-culture figures who will never be remembered on the level of the Kerouacs and Dylans. I love when these little near-forgotten icons and tales of eras past make the final cut of concert albums, like a little historical footnote for future generations of music buffs.

One of my personal favorites on this album is "Flower in the Sun," a fall-from-grace tune that, if you didn't focus on the lyrics, would sound like an high-energy song of empowerment. When you listen closely to the lyrics, it works surprisingly well with the contrasting pace of the song.

While hits like "Piece of My Heart" and "Half Moon" don't soar above the studio cuts like the abovementioned songs, they are still excellent takes. And "Ball and Chain......" I would lay odds that even on her worst night, Janis Joplin could hit that song home. There is something about the way she belts out that song, be it studio or live recording, that will give you goosebumps.

This is one of those great albums that was always readily available in the days of LP past, and is still very available on CD. "Joplin In Concert" is a rare gem of a live album that any Joplin fan should pick up in case it goes out of print.