Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968

1968-06-23 [2012] Big Brother & the Holding Company

Tracks (14)

01 Combination Of The Two (Sam Andrew) info icon
02 I Need A Man To Love (Janis Joplin, Sam Andrew) info icon
03 Flower In The Sun (Sam Andrew) info icon
04 Light Is Faster Than Sound (Peter Albin) info icon
05 Summertime (DuBose Heyward, George Gershwin) info icon
06 Catch Me Daddy (Peter Albin, Sam Andrew, David Getz, James Gurley, Janis Joplin) info icon
07 It's A Deal (Albin/Andrew/Getz/Gurley/Joplin) info icon
08 Call On Me (Sam Andrew) info icon
09 I'm Man info icon
[09. Jam - I'm Man (Mad Man Blues)]
10 Piece Of My Heart (Jerry Ragovoy, Bert Berns) info icon
11 Coo Coo (Peter Albin) info icon
12 Ball and Chain (Willie Mae Thornton) info icon
13 Down On Me (Eddy Head, arr. Janis Joplin) info icon
14 Call On Me (Sam Andrew) info icon
Saturday Show - June 22, 1968

Notes

Live
N. CDs: 1

Recorded on June 23, 1968 at The Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, California, by Owsley Stanley.
Released on March 13, 2012.

Releases


  1. 2CD / 2LP Columbia/Legacy Recordings 2012-03-13
    JANIS JOPLIN - THE PEARL SESSIONS (NEW TWO-DISC EDITION PREMIERING NINE PREVIOUSLY UNAVAILABLE TRACKS & NEWLY DISCOVERED STUDIO RECORDINGS)
    &
    THE FIRST OF BEAR'S "SONIC JOURNALS": BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY FEATURING JANIS JOPLIN - LIVE AT THE CAROUSEL BALLROOM 1968 RECORDED & PRODUCED BY OWSLEY STANLEY ("BEAR")
    Highlights From The Pearl Sessions, Limited Edition Double 10" Vinyl Release, Struck For Record Store Day 2012

    The Pearl Sessions is an historic expansion of Joplin's final studio album, providing fascinating new insight into Janis' creative process through a range of rare and previously unreleased material.

    Newly available bonus material on The Pearl Sessions includes the original master mono mixes of the album's singles ("Cry Baby," "Me and Bobby McGee," "Half Moon," "Get It While You Can," "Move Over," "A Woman Left Lonely") and a full-length second disc showcasing Joplin live in the studio performing never-before-heard takes of Pearl classics. From behind-the-scenes banter to full finished takes, The Pearl Sessions shows the complexity of Joplin's genius, the tough and vulnerable aspects of her personality, her lightning sense of humor, and her razor-sharp attention to the details of her craft. Offering fresh perspectives on the more familiar "official" versions of the songs, alternate takes of "Get It While You Can," the Janis Joplin-composed "Move Over," and others open up unexpected new dimensions in the material and in the sublime nuances of Joplin's delivery.

    The Pearl Sessions offers an unprecedented opportunity to be in the room with Janis, her producer, Paul Rothchild, and the members of the Full Tilt Boogie Band (guitarist John Till, pianist Richard Bell, bassist Brad Campbell, drummer Clark Pierson, organist Ken Pearson) as they create one of the enduring masterpieces of rock 'n' roll.

    Originally released on January 11, 1971 (three months after her passing on October 4, 1970), Pearl debuted Joplin's final finished studio recordings. The only album Joplin ever recorded with the Full Tilt Boogie Band, the touring ensemble that had backed her on the Festival Express (a mythic 1970 concert tour by railroad across Canada with the Grateful Dead, the Band and others), Pearl included canonical studio recordings of songs that had been introduced to audiences on tour. A live version of "Tell Me Mama" (a song not included on the original Pearl), recorded during the legendary Toronto Festival Express date, is included as a bonus track on The Pearl Sessions. Also included as a bonus is Janis' scorching live version of "Half Moon," recorded for her appearance on "The Dick Cavett Show" on August 3, 1970.

    Peaking at #1 on the Billboard 200, a position it held for nine weeks, Pearl included some of Janis's most familiar and best-loved performances including her cover of Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee" and her off-the-cuff a cappella "Mercedes Benz." A never released alternate take and the original "Me and Bobby McGee" demo are both included on The Pearl Sessions.

    When putting together material for a 40th anniversary edition of Pearl, researchers discovered a treasure-trove of previously uncatalogued audio tapes from the album's sessions, produced by Paul Rothchild. An industry legend, perhaps best-known for producing the first five Doors albums, Rothchild further solidified his position in music history with his work on Pearl.

    The Pearl Sessions brings together the original mono versions of the album's 45s and the original LP tracks alongside a revelatory cavalcade of newly-discovered alternate versions, outtakes and vocal takes that put you in the studio with Janis Joplin.

    A limited edition double 10" high fidelity vinyl gatefold release, Highlights from The Pearl Sessions will be available exclusively for Record Store Day (April 21, 2012). A companion to the newly curated two CD edition of Joplin's farewell masterpiece, Pearl, this vinyl release presents previously unreleased and seldom heard takes and early versions of classic songs, culled from the recently discovered tapes used to create The Pearl Sessions.

    A limited edition 12" vinyl edition of Pearl will also be available on Tuesday, April 17. A breakout from the Classic LP Collection box, the album is pressed at RTI on 180-gram audiophile vinyl.

    Janis Joplin - The Pearl Sessions
    DISC ONE:
    The Pearl Album - produced by Paul Rothchild
    Move Over
    Cry Baby
    A Woman Left Lonely
    Half Moon
    Buried Alive In The Blues
    My Baby
    Me and Bobby McGee
    Mercedes Benz
    Trust Me
    Get It While You Can











    Bonus Tracks - the Mono Single Masters - produced by Paul Rothchild

    Me and Bobby McGee
    Half Moon
    Cry Baby
    Get It While You Can
    Move Over
    A Woman Left Lonely

    DISC TWO:
    The Pearl Sessions & more...
    Overheard in the Studio...
    Get It While You Can (take 3) - previously unissued
    Overheard in the Studio...
    Get It While You Can (take 5) - previously unissued
    Overheard in the Studio...
    Move Over (take 6) - previously unissued
    Move Over (take 13) - previously unissued
    Move Over (take 17) - previously unissued
    Me and Bobby McGee (demo version)
    Me and Bobby McGee (take 5 - alternate) - previously unissued
    Cry Baby (alternate version)
    A Woman Left Lonely (alternate vocal)
    Overheard in the Studio...
    My Baby (alternate take) - previously unissued
    Overheard in the Studio...
    Get It While You Can (take 3) - previously unissued
    My Baby (alternate take)
    Pearl (instrumental) - Full Tilt Boogie Band

    Bonus Tracks
    Tell Mama (Live) - June 28, 1970 - Toronto
    Half Moon (Live) - August 3, 1970 - from "The Dick Cavett Show"

    Janis Joplin - Highlights from The Pearl Sessions
    10" vinyl

    SIDE ONE
    Get It While You Can (take 3)
    Move Over (take 6)
    Me And Bobby McGee (demo version) *

    SIDE TWO
    Cry Baby (alternate version) *
    A Woman Left Lonely (alternate vocal)
    My Baby (alternate take)

    SIDE THREE
    Move Over (take 13)
    Me And Bobby McGee (take 5 - alternate)
    Get It While You Can (take 5)

    SIDE FOUR
    My Baby (alternate take) *
    Get It While You Can (take 3)
    Pearl (instrumental) *


    All tracks previously unissued except *

    Original Recordings Produced by Paul Rothchild

Reviews

  1. Legacy Recordings
    http://www.legacyrecordings.com/news/big-brother-and-holding-companys-live-carousel-ballroom-1968-feat-janis-joplin-available-march-13-2012

    Thursday, January 5, 2012
    COLUMBIA/LEGACY RECORDINGS RELEASING
    THE FIRST OF "BEAR'S SONIC JOURNALS":
    BIG BROTHER & THE HOLDING COMPANY FEATURING JANIS JOPLIN
    LIVE AT THE CAROUSEL BALLROOM 1968,
    RECORDED & PRODUCED BY OWSLEY STANLEY ("BEAR")

    Long Awaited Release of Seminal Concert Recording
    from Mythic Soundman's "Sonic Journals"
    Available Tuesday, March 13, 2012

    Columbia/Legacy Recordings is proud to announce the release of Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968, a previously unavailable live concert recording of Big Brother and the Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin, recorded June 23, 1968 by legendary soundman Owsley Stanley, a/k/a "Bear," who supervised the mastering of this release before his fatal car accident on March 12, 2011, in his adopted homeland of Australia. The release of the album marks the one-year anniversary of his passing and is dedicated to Bear.

    "Care was taken to preserve and ensure the integrity of the music as well as to present an accurate snapshot of the masterful talent of one of the greatest singers of her generation and one of the hottest live bands in the San Francisco scene," wrote Bear's widow, Sheilah Stanley, in her dedication to Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968. "This is Bear's vision - how he heard the band live, and how he wanted to transmit that to you...this truly is Bear's presentation of this phenomenal band and inspirational music."

    Cited by San Francisco rock scribe Joel Selvin as "truly one of the fathers of today's concert sound systems," Owsley Bear Stanley "supervised the sound at the Carousel Ballroom, a former big band dance palace at the corner of Market and Van Ness in downtown San Francisco that, for a few brief, glorious months in 1968 was operated by a collective formed by the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother and the Holding Company, a social/musical laboratory experiment akin to inmates running asylums, whose six-month run may well have corresponded with the height of the whole '60s Haight-Ashbury/San Francisco thing...."

    An essential and pivotal figure in the San Francisco counter-cultural scene, from beatniks to hippies to beyond, Bear began mixing live sound with the Grateful Dead in 1966 and ran the sound system for the Carousel until Bill Graham took over and rechristened it the Fillmore West in the autumn of1968. From his first days with the Dead, Bear would record the shows he was involved with as way to improve his live system set-ups. Bear's "sonic journals" are generally regarded as the gold standard for live concerts from the psychedelic era.

    "What is key about these moments captured by Owsley is that they're a true representation of what this mythic band really sounded like live," notes rock scribe Jaan Uhelszki in her essay on Janis and Big Brother's enduring ability to astound and surprise, "the rough magic, the explosive synergy, the dangerous frisson of boundaries being demolished between artist and audience....these 14 songs are a testament to what a force of nature Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company was during these two nights at the Carousel Ballroom. Showing them at the zenith of their considerable power, it so fortunate that this recording was ever made-only two months before their break up. This is one of the few living documents of that propitious and monumental pairing."

    "He viewed these recordings as windows into the past," wrote Bear's son, Star finder Stanley, in his notes for Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968. "So this is not just a live recording of Janis Joplin singing with Big Brother and the Holding Company. This is an auditory portal that...can transport you back to the short-lived but incredible world of the Carousel Ballroom in 1968."
    BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY FEATURING JANIS JOPLIN - Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968
    tracklisting
    1. Combination Of The Two
    2. I Need A Man To Love
    3. Flower In The Sun
    4. Light Is Faster Than Sound
    5. Summertime
    6. Catch Me Daddy
    7. It's A Deal
    8. Call On Me
    9. Jam - I'm Mad
    10. Piece Of My Heart
    11. Coo Coo
    12. Ball & Chain
    13. Down On Me

    Bonus Track:
    14. Call On Me (Saturday Show-June 22, 1968)