Redtree Times

Time has slipped away this morning. I began looking for a piece of music to play on YouTube and got sucked into a vortex of watching reaction videos of people listening to songs for the first time. They have never heard these songs or, in many cases, even heard of the artists and react to the taped performances or just the audio.

I ended up watching a bunch of these video of different folks reacting to Janis Joplin songs. The awe her voice and authenticity inspires is palpable in these videos. Having grown up with this music, I find it hard to believe that someone has missed out on this but the genuine nature of their reactions more than make up for their lack of knowledge.

One performance that knocked most of these folks out was Janis’ landmark performance of Ball & Chain at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. It is an astounding performance and deserves the jaw drops it receives. One of my favorite parts of this video is the camera cutting away to Mama Cass who watches spellbound by Janis. In the reaction videos they had no idea that they were looking at Mama Cass and more than likely wouldn’t know who she was since they hadn’t heard of Janis at this point.

Seeing Mama Cass reminds me of the story of guitarist Mike Bloomfield who in the mid 60’s was a hot player in the world of rock and blues. He spoke about going to see Jimi Hendrix at the Cafe Wha ( I think that was the club he spoke of) in Greenwich Village. Knowing Bloomfield was in the audience, Jimi put on an incredible performance of his virtuosity, seemingly pushing it in Bloomfield’s face. Bloomfield left afterward a shaken man and claimed he had a hard time picking up his guitar for a long time. It felt hopeless to him after seeing Jimi.

He got over it, of course, as I am sure Mama Cass did as well. You find your own voice, your own authenticity, and you do what you can with it.

Anyway, here’s Janis and Ball & Chain from that Monterey Pop show. A performance for the ages…