Product Description

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: JOPLIN,JANIS
Title: PEARL
Street Release Date: 08/31/1999
Domestic
Genre: ROCK/POP

Track Listing

1. Move Over
2. Cry Baby
3. Woman Left Lonely
4. Half Moon
5. Buried Alive in the Blues
6. My Baby
7. Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin, Janis Joplin & the Full Tilt Boogie Band
8. Mercedes Benz
9. Trust Me
10. Get It While You Can
11. Tell Mama [Live][#][*]
12. Little Girl Blue [Live][#][*]
13. Try (Just a Little Bit Harder) [Live][#][*]
14. Cry Baby [Live][#][*]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3765 in Music
• Brand: JOPLIN,JANIS
• Released on: 1999-08-31
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording remastered, Extra tracks
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
Janis Joplin made the blues her own. Though she didn't live to finish this album before her 1970 death from a heroin overdose, her intense passion and frantic cries of pain and ecstasy were enough to make Pearl one of the most memorable recordings of her era. Her band does fill up some vinyl with the instrumental "Buried Alive in the Blues," but it's the vocals that make this album worth hearing these many decades later. Listen to the tortured heartbreak of "Cry Baby" or the hopeful declarations of Kris Kristofferson's "Me & Bobby McGee" and understand why Joplin remains an essential, if tragic, figure in pop. This reissue of Joplin's final album includes four live bonus tracks recorded during the 1970 Canadian Festival Express Tour. --Steve Appleford

Customer Reviews

Polished Pearl
I've never understood the intensity of the PEARL vs. CHEAP THRILLS debate among Joplin fans. Yes, the Big Brother record captured Janis at her raw vital best. Her final album, with the more polished Full Tilt Boogie, was a somewhat different breed of animal, tighter, more "professional," and ultimately, more commercial, providing Joplin her posthumous (and sole) number one hit in Kristofferon's "Me and Bobby McGee." I loved all of Janis' records--including the much maligned Mainstream debut and only somewhat less maligned Kozmic Blues--and never felt compelled to take a stance. The body of work isn't that extensive: it's better to treasure each one for what it has to offer.

And they all offer at least a few real pearls. The variety of styles that Janis' embraced during her brief recording career was impressive. Her former road manager, John Cooke, notes in the liner notes to this newest version of PEARL that Janis' musical restlessness was reflective of her "questing nature." That's certainly true--three different bands in as many years suggests as much--and it's also reflective of the times as well. No one expected the Beatles to do SGT. PEPPER REDUX or the Stones to linger at the (BEGGAR'S) BANQUET for very long.

Moreover, by 1970, when PEARL was recorded, there was more of an emphasis on tighter musicianship and less experimentalism. You could argue that had Janis, in fact, remained with Big Brother, they would have both mellowed out and tightened up themselves (as evidenced on their post-Janis records in the 70s). Maybe so, but there can be little doubt that FTB was a good band and a perfect accompaniment for Janis and that the move toward a more keyboard based sound complemented her vocals in a way that was different (if not necessarily better) that Big Brother's twin guitar freak out.

There's no epic "Ball & Chain" style number here, although "Get It While You Can" is an offering in something of the same spirit, if not the same magnitude. Much of the material here is straightforward rock'n'roll ("Move Over," "Half Moon") appropriate for any bar or garage band to cover.

But along with all that full tilt boogying, there's still plenty of emotional heft. The feeling that she can pack into a single phrase, or WORD, can be revelatory. When she sings, "a woman left lonely is just a VICTI-I-IM of her man," well, you just better believe the lady.

"Bobby McGee" was, of course, proof of what fans already knew, i.e. that Janis was not just about screaming her lungs out. I was glad in the winter of '71 to finally have a Joplin track I could play for my mom, proof not only that Joplin could sing, but that she could be subtle to boot. In fact, a careful listening to PEARL will proove that as Cooke observes in his notes, she was beginning "to learn...something she never expected to learn: how to sing in a new way...(one) that would allow her to sing for years to come."

And that touches on another debate among fans, the one about how long she would have had before her voice gave out totally. It's not just "Bobby McGee" that suggests that she was learning to rely on more on phrasing and shading than on belting. Every track on the album suggests a more mature singer was emerging, with no loss of spontaneity or vitality though. She would have continued to make great blues rock records for years to come, had she lived. Of that I am convinced.

The bonus tracks are all previously unreleased "live" tracks with Full Tilt Boogie. Similar live arrangements of three of these songs have been released in the past, however, so the listener is justified in getting that deja-vu all over again feeling. Fans like me are glad to have them anyway. There are always little differences in phrasing or in her vamps that are worth the price of admission.

For Joplin newbies, though, I'd suggest playing PEARL through a few times straight, and stopping it BEFORE the bonus live tracks. Ending the record with "Get It While You Can" was ending the record on just the right note. It's a mini-anthem for Joplin--as much "on message" as "Bobby McGee" certainly. And both songs took on new meaning in light of her death.

The debate about which Joplin record was the "best" will likely rage on among devotees. Me, I'm not gonna worry about it. To me they're all classics.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose..."
They don't make `em like Janis Joplin anymore. In today's age of gratuitous vocal overdubbing and endless studio-sparkle, very rarely do vocalists feel the need to muster the immense oomph that was evident in almost every note Miss Joplin ever recorded. Sure, her voice was rugged, raspy and not at all pretty in the traditional sense, but she bellowed every word from straight from the bottom of her gut, putting fiery emotion into every syllable. The album that displays her vocals at their most confident is 1971's Pearl. On her debut, 1968's Cheap Thrills, sludgy, psychedelic guitar shared an equal footing with her mighty cries. On 1969's Kozmic Blues, dense, funky baselines were her partner. On Pearl, though, the instrumentation is placed distinctly behind her vocals. Her commanding, three-dimensional, highly textured voice bounces across delightful melodies ("Move Over" "Cry Baby"), induces dulcet psychedelic trances ("Half Moon," "Trust Me") and soars straight to the heavens ("Get It While You Can," "Me and Bobby McGee"). On a few tracks, her new confidence results in unstructured yelping ("A Woman Left Lonely," "My Baby"), but that is forgivable for so many moments that are utterly intoxicating. No vocalist in years has released an album as raw and powerful as Pearl and it is becoming increasingly unlikely that one ever will.

Unfinished
I remember the awe and the sorrow I felt when I bought my first copy of Pearl in the early days of 1971. So much unleashed potential evaporated by the flame, that it seem to haunt the room as I placed the needle to the vinyl to hear the first words "You say that it's over." The good time girl from Port Arthur, Texas whose voice tore at your heart like a ball and chain would sing no longer.

Janis Joplin was just 27 years old when she died in October of 1970. She had put together a band , Full Tilt Boogie, which would dispense with the endless jams and showcase her voice and her talent in a way that wasn�t done by Big Brother. Janis was in the midst of recording Pearl with her vocals tracks for Buried Alive in the Blues scheduled to be recorded the day after her death. Instead Buried Alive in the Blues rests on the album as instrumental filler, a lonely commentary of her life.

Pearl is a truly extraordinary album which displays is the range and emotions which Janis' voice was capable of. It was to be a bridge to better things instead of the lasting musical landmark that it is. Janis Joplin's voice stretches from gentle and tender in a Woman that's Lonely to pained and sorrowful in Cry Baby to amused in Mercedes Benz.

In the days of freedom and loss, Janis Joplin sang Kristofferson's song of freedom and loss with an intense sincerity and pain projected from her depths. Countless numbers sang along with her "Freedom's just another name , for nothing left to lose," knowing full well that there was indeed something more to lose.

I still sing her wonderful original song "Mercedes Benz" to my roses while I garden. There is such a simplicity attached with the great American wish of striking it rich. It remains a reminder of her great humor and sense of irony as well as her incredible talent.

Pearl continues to be a cd which showcases a wonderful voice and talent.