Customer Reviews

Janis Joplin: The Woodstock Experience

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Janis Joplin had to have been the hardest working woman in show business. You can hear it in her voice as it rips your soul apart! Of course she's no Teena Marie or Barbra Streisand as far as range is concerned, but Joplin had that one-of-kind voice that was brutally honest. On every song she sang, her soul spoke to the listener's.

This two-CD set of JANIS JOPLIN: THE WOODSTOCK EXPERIENCE is a prime example of this force of nature. The "live" Woodstock CD is worth the price of this set alone and runs 58:16 almost a full hour of concert material. The other CD is I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again, Mama without the extra tracks (but those are included on the Woodstock CD with the exception "Dear Landlord").

The live Woodstock CD captures the frenzy that was in Joplin's performance as she rips through the sets like "Raise Your Hand," "Piece Of My Heart," and "Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)" where she screams and shouts like a possessed woman trying to drive the evil spirits away. She almost becomes delirious, ad-libbing here and there, but you get chills listening to her wail away on these songs that you can't help but cheer her on!

Joplin also slow things down a little (sort of) with "Kozmic Blues," "To Love Somebody," "Work Me, Lord," (which can be seen on Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Director's Cut (40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition with Amazon Exclusive Bonus Disc)), "Ball And Chain," and takes Gershwin's "Summertime" to a whole new level. Even though these are ballads, Joplin's voice oozes with soul, rage, pain and rock.

I like the engagement with the audience as Janice talks to them between songs and sometimes during the song itself. Incredible performance! And the announcer asking the crowd "Do you want some more?" and they scream out their approval. At the end of her set you can hear the audience screaming for more! It really allows you to experience the concert.

The set comes with the two CDs in cardboard replica album jackets with sleeves and housed in a larger cardboard package. There's liner notes on the sleeves for both CDs and comes with a mini-poster of Janis performing on one-side and the audience on the other.

"I Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again, Mama" is the other CD in this set and it contains the studio recording of that album. Although the material is far more polished and controlled than the live CD, it still rocks with energy and feeling.

Get this set to find out what the hype surrounding Janis Joplin was all about.

first of all, this is a GREAT show and if you are a janis fan, it's a must. however, i have one HUGE disappointment w/ it that i'll explain in a moment. so, let's start off w/, that by all accounts, this show is reputedly her worst ever. well, many years ago, through amazon, i got an "import" of this show. and it sounded HORRIBLE. i didn't know if it was because the show was that bad or that the sound quality made it so bad. so, i get this new disc, and w/in about 2 seconds i was VERY relieved to hear how WONDERFUL it sounds and that the show is just TERRIFIC, even if it was her worst show. yes, her voice is strained, yes the inbetween song talking is drugged rambling, but is't a GREAT show.
now, for the HUGE disappointment, which most of you will probably not appreciate. so, on the "import" verson, the peak of the show, and i mean THE PEAK, is "I can't turn you loose." it's an AMAZING piece of funk that would give me goose bumps EVERYTIME i heard it. so, I'm SOOOOOOOOO excited to get this new disc, if only for this one song. so, i'm listening to it, grooving away, and all of a sudden, IT ENDS! on the "import," it's nearly TEN MINUTES of grooving, w/ her and snookey going back and forth w/ each other, w/ the highlite being JANIS' part...WHY ON EARTH, ON A JANIS JOPLIN DISC, WOULD THEY TAKE OUT JANIS' PART??? well, i came CRASHING down and hold a resentment against the disc!!! oh well, at least i still have the "import." so, i don't know how, but if you guys can somehow come across the full length version, you'll know what i mean...

Janis Joplin was very unhappy with her performance at Woodstock. So much so, that she refused to have her performance included in the movie of the festival that was released the following year. SHe actually starts the set out very strong with a spirited Raise Your Hand. The next song, As Good As You've Been To This World, showcases the band, which plays very well here. Janis' vocal is much more impassioned than on the studio version of the song from her first solo album, "I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again, Mama!" It has been said that this band, which was formed after she left Big Brother & The Holding Company, never gelled completely, but they did improve markedly after Sam Andrew left the group in August 1969, a few weeks before Woodstock.
It appears that Janis was striving for a sound similiar to Sly And The Family Stone, but her musicians were not on that level. Janis' cover of the Bee Gees, "To Love Somebody" gets a better treatment than the studio version, and she gives near definitive versions of "Summertime," "Try" and "Kozmic Blues." Oddly enough, even though it is said that this disc contains the complete Woodstock performance, her vocal is edited out on "Can't Turn You Loose." Janis' voice gives out on her a few times in the remainder of the concert, most noticeably in "Work Me, Lord," even so, it is an absolutely amazing vocal, and quite unlike any other version she sang before or since. Her final encore, "Ball And Chain" starts off brilliantly, but Janis is so wasted by the end of the concert, that she seems to be struggling to keep it together at the end. This performance shows what a brilliant talent she possessed. She isn't operating at full capacity here, but still infuses her performance with more passion than anyone else on the bill. Janis was a true original. It would serve her memory well if Sony would release her performances from the Festival Express in their entirety.

On the track "I can't Turn you loose" This is the one track that features Snooky flower doing his Reddingesque performance away from playing his Barritone Sax. There's a whole part where Janis duets with him on this same track, but unfortunately it has been deleted from this so-called complete recording. If you don't believe me go to your local vhs store (if you can still find one) and rent "Janis". you will then see and hear the missing section of the song that was graciously removed. I wonder what other parts have been deleted. The rest of the album is great along with the album "Igot dem ol Kozmic blues again mama".

I assume that was a joke. To compare Pearl to either of those two is ridiculous. They aren't fit to touch the hem of her bellbottoms.

Contrary to the sleeve notes, Janis' voice does give out a couple of times on this set, but this does not detract. The raw power and honesty, plus great songs, plus the Kozmic Blues studio album (which I rate over Pearl) make this a great buy. 5 stars for Janis tragics.

I had the good fortune to see Janis WITH Big Brother And The Holding Company. I have always felt that band was her best. I was a true "Flower Child," but unfortunately never made the trip from Iowa to Woodstock. By the way, the day I went to buy the tickets, Bobby Kennedy was outside of the arena shaking hands. Janis only filled two thirds of the auditorium.

Janis was shunned in high school because she wasn't regarded as pretty. She had enough inner beauty for dozens of people. She made the choice to dig deep in her soul and the blues was her escape. Probably her biggest influence was "Big Mama Thornton." Any blues man can hear Thornton's influence on many songs, especially on Ball and Chain.

I heard the two disc set at my brother's home and came home and bought it right away. I could hardly wait to own my own discs. As a blues and R&R singer, trust me, this IS THE REAL THING! To those reviewers who complain of the sound quality. They are beating a dead horse. I don't understand their thinking. It's been 40 years for crying out loud! I promise you this, if you have an equalizer, the sound can be equal to any new disc.

Janis NEVER saved a hard note for another day, or as some bands & singers do..."phone in a performance." Thanks for Columbia Records for releasing the original Woodstock and the artist's albums when they played at Woodstock.

........well, with my sarcastic tongue-in-cheek, i couldn't resist this title after reading some of the other comments...before i heard the double CD. Janis showed up sans Big Brother and with a new back-up sound. Some have commented that she may've been tryin' to create a sound more like The Family Stone....i don't know....but those that think that they may not appreciate the new sound enough to get this CD....even tho they love Janis and Big Brother....here's my advice, if you like the 'I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again, Mama' CD and Janis' earlier stuff....you should love the Woodstock CD........my first impression of her 'new' sound was that the Blues Brothers band must've been backing her (sarcasm).....same 60s blues band sound....i even think Jake might've been as good on the vocals...please remember that the first Blues Brothers album was a hot seller and i'm not dogging Janis' new band...its just different....after my initial listen, i was unsure about how good i thought it was........on my second playing, i loved it.........some excellent...and i mean excellent... cuts and the least of the cuts are good......its a good slice of Janis in the soup of time........yeah, her voice failed her a tiny bit on one of her serious 'get down' moments.....but overall..it was real and in the moment of history.......and it is extraordinary

Janis sounds fine here, the blues is not about slick polished music like the crap on the charts. Band is funky but a little weak-Joplin never had a band commensarate with her talents- and certainly not on a level with Sly or the James Brown or Funkadelic units. Musically and sonically, this deserves four stars. I'm downgrading the package due to the obscene habits of the record companies. Can't they find a better way to squeeze a buck from their classics than to make fans pay repeatedly for the SAME STUFF. I mean would it have been too much to ask for Columbia/Sony to package the Woodstock concerts (Winter, Santana, etc.) in a less expensive form, without forcing another copy of the original 20-something minute LP? At least this packaging is better than a 3 or 4 disc box with a couple of rarities, but...

Reviewers are torn between the sound vs. performance of Joplin at Woodstock (and the missing vocals on "I Can't Turn You Loose"). There exist two (unauthorized) concert recordings from the same 1969 tour that showcase a more seasoned Joplin with the Kozmic Blues Band. One is called "Summertime" (recorded in Amsterdam) and the other is "1969 Dallas/Amsterdam" (13 tracks, 7 of which replicate "Summertime"). "Maybe," "Summertime" and "Ball & Chain" from Amsterdam can be found on the "Janis" soundtrack import, which sounds excellent, even if it'll never be available in the U.S. except for the cassette version from years ago.
With all the posthumous and "new" Jimi Hendrix products being released seemingly every other week, aren't there ANY unreleased concert recordings and/or alternate studio cuts of Janis Joplin, with any of her three bands?