Consumer Guide Album

Janis Joplin: Janis Joplin [Columbia, 1975]
Because it captures such subtle yet essential virtues as intelligence, humor, and compassion as well as the big stuff she was famous for, film may have been Janis's real medium, and I recommend the documentary to which this double-LP is the putative soundtrack. But it ought to be seen and not heard--most of these cuts are available elsewhere, and the newly compiled early tapes are the rather tinny record of a singer who hasn't found her music or her band. C+