The present group is only three weeks old. The band's strongest soloist is rock-oriented guitarist Sam Andrew, a holdover from Big Brother and the Holding Company, the group for which Miss Joplin once sang lead vocals. There are no strong bluesmen in her present group. A group, say, like the Butterfield Blues Band at its peak would be ideal. Miss Joplin, a hard-rock-blues singer more in the tradition of Bessie Smith and Big Mamma Willie Mae Thornton than of San Francisco rock, brought the group into Fillmore East, the Lower East Side new-music emporium, last week for a New York debut. Her new six-man band may not even understand it. NEW YORK - Janis Joplin sings the blues like she means it. JANIS JOPLIN'S SONG STYLE LEAVES CRITICS IN DOUBT Though we doubt we would want to listen to the same thing on disk, we would welcome a chance to catch the whole thing again on a night when our minds were in better shape. For more than an hour, they kept us entranced by exploring every facet of rock. Unfortunately, we know the feeling of warmth, ecstasy, of many other pleasurable things, that Janis was capable of in the past, and we can only hope she will soon be providing them again. In fact, if we had never heard, or heard of, Janis before, we would have been raving about the new discovery. Those who have never seen Janis, or have seen her on an off-night, would have been more than happy with the new show. But the new songs, the new sound of Janis Joplin was a letdown, and since they formed the bulk of the act, it too suffered. Her two encore numbers, "Piece Of My Heart" and "Ball and Chain," were the Janis of old. We liked her rendition of "Maybe," the old Chantells' hit, the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody." And nobody does "Summertime" better than Janis. But somehow, Nick's songs don't sound right on Janis. For awhile, we were thinking of it as Blood, Sweat and Janis, what with the horns and all, and then decided it was closer to the Electric Janis, what with the Nick Gravenite tunes. Paradoxically, we got the feeling that this new band will be a much stronger recording entity than the old. Janis will be given a second chance and probably a third and fourth, for she is too good a talent to be lost. Perhaps Janis felt that the new band was superior enough to let her relax a little, perhaps she was no longer excited. What was missing from the new Janis Joplin was the total excitement that characterized her performance with Big Brother. For Janis Joplin and her new band, the moment of truth was a moment that should have been postponed. It's usually the show attended by the most important and influential musical trade and press personages, who recognize that a performer needs a few shows to warm-up. The last show of a two day, four show stand is the moment of truth a performer must face when playing the Fillmore.
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