30 Songs in 30 Days Challenge – Day 25 – the blues one

My lovely and talented friend Sarah (see day 1 for link) started this challenge.

I am going to do this the way Sarah did – a song every day and with a few lines about why I like each artist and song, and why it is significant for me. I am as much about the music as the words by the way, so I have to like both if I include a song.

Please feel free to join in this challenge with your own lists!

‘Ball and Chain’ by Big Brother/Janis Joplin

This performance has achieved legendary status. And the only thing performed twice at the ’67 Monterey festival. The movie being made of the festival neglected to film the first performance because Joplin was a relative unknown – this being her first big show. I can only imagine how much the movie makers must have kicked themselves afterwards because the reaction to this performance was such that she was asked to repeat it for the cameras the next day. An astonishingly raw and exhausting vocal performances, this was a rendition of a song by blues legend ‘Big Mama’ Mae Thornton.