Customer Reviews

Janis: The Way She Was [Import]

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This 1974 documentary contains some of Janis Joplin's best performances as well as some great spontaneous interviews. It has her incredible performance of Ball and Chain at Monterey ('67), some Cheap Thrills studio sessions ('68), Woodstock ('69), and Calgary ('70). She blows away the audience on Dick Cavett with Move Over and breaks down during the High School reunion interviews. Where she came from in Port Arthur, TX is such a contrast to who she was. And who she was was the incarnation of the Spirit of the 1960s counter-culture.

We get 2 great performances of Piece of My Heart, one of Tell Mama, Try, and Summertime both live and in studio. If you really get into this you might, just might, see God in Janis. She seeps sexuality in her performances, and reveals substantial depth of insight and intellect when interviewed. Even as we are in the midst of our 21st century Brittany Spears culture, we can go back to this and know there was once an unflinching soaring eagle in free flight.

To watch this and not be touched by her means you have lost your humanity.

Amazing live performances captured on film are the reason to see to see this.

The interviews with Janis don't reveal all that much, and there's no real sense of her history.
Even the stage stuff is shot pretty straightforwardly. But, man-o-man could she sing!

One wonderful thing, is that a lot of the numbers are uncut, allowed to go their full length,
which, with Janis in concert, could easily be 8 minutes or more. The power, the emotion, the energy,
the sexiness, the sweet sense of fun she brought to the stage could only be hinted at on her
albums.

It awful to think that this is essentially unavailable in North America
(there is a region 2 DVD). Time for a decent DVD re-release!

after agent louder ,from the rock files bureau,deep and thorough investigation of theses individuals,he discovered the following:

jimi hendrix.overdosed.on september 18 1970.age 27
an electric guitar genius.

jim morrison.heart failure.on july 3 1971.age 27
a rock shaman.

janis joplin.overdosed .on october 4 1970.age 27
she was..................
buy the tape honey!