Janis Joplin – Pearl: Legacy Edition

One of the saddest things about Janis Joplin’s death is that her life and career seemed to be on the upswing at the time. She’d toured successfully with her new backing group, the Full Tilt Boogie Band, and she was enjoying working with a new producer, Paul Rothchild, on the album that would be called Pearl (Joplin’s nickname/alter ego). She’d also curtailed her hard drug use, and was largely clean — until the early morning hours of October 4, 1970, when she injected herself with a dose of unusually pure heroin that killed the 27-year-old singer in less than 20 minutes.

Which makes it a shame that Pearl carries the baggage of being Joplin’s first posthumous album. Thirty-five years on, one can make a clearer assessment, especially as this two-disc reissue gives a better overall sense of her output in 1970. The second CD is comprised of thirteen tracks from the Festival Express tour, a rock festival that traveled across Canada by train in the summer of 1970 (a film of the tour was released last year). About half the live material is previously unreleased — the rest was one LP on the posthumous double-album Live — and four of the songs were later recorded for Pearl.

Comparisons between the live and studio takes show an artist in full command of her talents. The live versions are looser, but the arrangements are already nailed down, and they become even stronger in the studio. Joplin exhibits increasing control over her remarkable voice, which kept improving throughout her career; check out the slinky beginning of “Cry Baby”. Though she could always rise to the occasion as a blues shouter, Joplin’s vocal style eventually became less erratic — and frantic — than it had been in her earlier days. One of the bonus tracks underscores this point. It’s an earlier version of “Cry Baby”, where Joplin pushes her voice to reach an even higher note on the intro but fails, her voice cracking and breaking into laughter. On the final take, she makes it sound effortless.

But Pearl is chiefly remembered for its quieter numbers, specifically Kris Kristofferson’s “Me And Bobby McGee”; this reissue includes a demo take that’s even more poignant than the final version. A sense of good spirits also permeates the work, from the jokey “Mercedes Benz” to the bonus track of a birthday message to John Lennon, on which Joplin breaks into “Happy Trails”.