I was flipping through the "1000 Recordings" book and I ran into "Pearl," by Janis Joplin. You remember Janis Joplin. I do too; I remember reading that I should like her, and I remember buying that Big Brother and the Holding Company LP with "Piece of My Heart," and I remember that -- 16 years old, living in Richmond, Virginia, nothing wrong in my life that couldn't be fixed -- I remember that I thought that kinda screaming hollering and carrying could only be a good thing.
This was the era of Cinemax. I saw some "Live at the Fillmore" movie that had Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grateful Dead and other stuff in it, I don't know why I watched it, maybe the Doors were in it? Anyway. I was suddenly fascinated by 1960s music. (It all had happened, what, as long before then as 1994 happened before now. It would be like a 16-year-old today being riveted by, I dunno, M.C. Hammer. Can't touch this!)
I had listened to Pearl not long ago. And now, in the last 24 hours, I have listened to it five times. I have heard the four live bonus tracks on the rerelease, like, seven times. I listened to it on the deck. I listened to it with headphones. I listened to it with Joe. I listened to it without Joe. I listened to it and thought, WHAT DID SHE KNOW? What did Janis Joplin know that made her a shrieking angel? And a fine bandleader, and a better-than-average strategist with the songs she loved SO MUCH?
There's a virtuosic rage here. I don't know much about her, really, except that she drank a bunch and did all kinds of whatever else she could find. But this record, especially with the bonus tracks, is deep angry howling blues like nothing I have ever heard. Now, that can a bad thing, right? In business, everyone wants a competitor. In music, too, some need one -- Oasis needed Blur, and what, Christina certainly needed Britney. But Janis had nobody. Nobody sounded this mad, or this tight, or this powerful. The book sends me on to Bonnie Raitt from Janis, and that's telling in it's own right -- Raitt's a brilliant, structural, cool guitarist with a bright sensibility and a straight delivery. I'm listening this instant to Janis chanting "Push on, move on, come on...you better work your sweet ass, honey!" and you know she was bringing this power and sureness in her message, whatever it was, night after night after night (until she couldn't, maybe, because she was so badly ruined). Night after night after night, this connection -- this feeling that something was wrong, and she was going to correct it, cross it, push through it into something.
I could keep listening to this night after night after night myself to be with her in this organic hammering plastering crucible. I felt like this every minute of every day when I was 16, and now sometimes I wish I still did -- but she did, and look what happened to her, so maybe I should be glad that I don't feel that way, any more. Or, at least, not right now.