Tom Jones and Janis Joplin - Raise Your Hand

Tom Jones and Janis doing a powerhouse version of Raise Your Hand that feels like it may have moved the studio by a few inches. Erroneously dated "1970" in the roll, it was taped on September 21, 1969 and broadcast December 6th of that year. She'd be gone less than a year later at age 27.

They're backed by the band that Janis formed after leaving Big Brother that never had an "official" name, but came to be known as the Kozmic Blues Band, after the title of the only album they'd record with Joplin. Reports had it that Janis had wanted the full Stax/Motown/Aretha Franklin sort of sound for her new band, but - an untrained vocalist - she had a tendency to try to shout over the horns, and was blowing her voice out in live performances. She'd retire the Kozmic Blues Band and form her final group, Full Tilt Boogie, in May of 1970.

Janis Joplin died on October 6, 1970 in Hollywood, CA of a heroin overdose while cutting her final album Pearl with Full Tilt Boogie. It's useless to speculate what might have become of Joplin had she lived. 37 years from 1970 she'd be 64, maybe a happy retired grandmother, maybe - like some of her peers - still singing the blues to an older, appreciative crowd. But instead we have her frozen on film and tape and disc and vinyl, eternally 25, 26, 27, heading full tilt towards October 6, 1970.

I miss her awful.