8. Janis JoplinPearl
I’ve chosen the legacy edition, because it has so many bonus tracks. So if you want to hear more variety of the recordings, this would be the one that has more on it. Janis Joplin is an artist where you can easily go through and hear every single one of her recordings and watch all her videos, from Woodstock and anywhere else. She is a performer, and there are many connecting threads here, whether it is Bessie Smith, Arethra Franklin or even Brittney Howard from Alabama Shakes, to the power of the soulful, gutsy vocal delivery. And there is something about it that sounds real to me, it sounds raw. Her voice conveys a sense of power and open emotion. When Joplin sings about her emotions, her heart or her relationships it sounds so genuine and so pure, and that is a very valuable thing to me. You believe it, you believe her. She was a riveting performer and really a massive influence on my love for the power of the voice and the power of conveying emotions in the voice. She is like a blues version of Maria Callas, who is another artist I admire. She took the blues vernacular of many soul singers and blues singers like Bessie Smith and she made them her own, and she is a legend. She lived it, she was not fake, she actually lived it.
