259. Janis Joplin, "Pearl"

 


This album - Janis' second and, tragically, final solo record - opens with a fast drumbeat, soon joined by guitar and then that voice, that otherworldly voice that sounds like no one else before or since.  Really, this entire album is a tribute to Janis Joplin's amazing instrument, which she had complete control over and the ability to modulate between a raspy whisper and a full-throated yawp.  Just an incredible voice.

Recorded in LA in 1970, it came out in January 1971, three months after Janis OD'd in a hotel room at the age of 27.  It's a blues/soul pastiche, really well-recorded and expertly produced by Paul Rothchild.  Janis is backed up by her road band, the Full Tilt Boogie Band, who are clearly tight from a lot of shows together.

But let's cut straight to the outlier, an a capella song that's so well-known that my Dad, who was a hardcore country music fan and whose interest in rock extended only as far as Roy Orbison, knew all the words to: "Mercedes Benz."  The last song she ever recorded, it's a plea to God to give her what she deserves:

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends
So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV?
Dialing for dollars is trying to find me
I wait for delivery each day until three
So oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV?

Probably inevitably, the song was used in an actual Mercedes-Benz commercial in 1997.  "'Some people will say this is another example of commercialism usurping the icons dear to us,' said Ross Goldstein, who heads the marketing consultancy Generation Insights in San Francisco.  But he suspects many more will like the commercial because they have grown up and learned to laugh at themselves. 'It almost makes the purchase of a Mercedes Benz a counterculture act,' he said."  NO THE FUCK IT DOES NOT.  But whatever you have to tell yourself to get to sleep at night.  (Janis, btw, owned a Porsche.)

Also on this album is "Me and Bobby McGee," a Kris Kristofferson joint that was recorded by many (and I mean many - like everyone from Kenny Rogers to Pink) but for a huge swath of people (including me) will always be a Janis song.  No shade to Kristofferson - it's an absolute gem of songwriting - but Janis really brought it alive.  It's infused with sadness and longing and wry recollection.  She hit it out of the park.

(Next time you're over in the Haight, stroll by 122 Lyon, where Janis lived with Country Joe and, in a story no doubt familiar to other San Franciscans, was evicted from when her landlord learned she had a dog.)

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Absolutely yes.

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