Joplin Audio Recording Critique

Audio Recording Critique: Janis Joplin, “Cry Baby,” from the album Pearl

Janis Joplin was unarguably one of the first, and greatest female rock stars of her time. In fact she “broke the mold of how women in rock and roll were expected to act and took the world of music by storm” . Joplin had this edgy personality that matched up perfectly with her powerful voice, not only was she known for her raspy voice, but also for all her high energy used to generate such emotional music. Most know that although Joplin was a wonderful singer with a hard-edged blues voice, she had also never written her own music; Joplin preferred to sing covers of music. By her early teens Joplin became a loner at her high school, which led her to her interest in folk and blues. In 1963, Joplin decided to run away from home and began singing at clubs in

A year later, she earned enough money and hitched to California where she began singing blues and folk in several coffee houses around San Francisco. By 1966 Joplin was introduced to and began singing with a new band called, Big Brother and the Holding Company, a band that consisted of guitarists James Gurley and Sam Andrews, bassist Peter Albin, and drummer David Getz. While performing at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, the audience was blown away by the performance; they were mostly impressed by Joplin’s incredible voice. Although she was an outstanding singer, Joplin was “fueled by heroin, amphetamines and the bourbon she drank straight from the bottle during gigs,” which resulted in her “unrestrained sexual style and raw, gutsy sound that mesmerized audiences,”