iSound

White people really can have soul, if Janis Joplin is considered in evidence. Rather than recap her whole career, beginning with the familiar story of manager Chet Helms\' 1966 phone call from San Francisco to Joplin in Austin, TX (after which she hitchhiked all the way out to the audition with Big Brother and the Holding Company), I propose that we look at her unique vocal character simply via the example of the posthumous hit, Kris Kristofferson\'s \"Me And Bobby McGee\". \"McGee\" is a perfect example of how Joplin and her several collaboration bands brought together two components of late 60\'s hard rock more effectively than ever: the soulful singing and the keyboard inclusions. Joplin\'s gravel-throated power was well-suited for subjects of raw emotion, and a matter of instrumentation heightened the serious connotations at work: not only was the Hammond organ augmented by a rotating speaker unit known as a \'Leslie\', thus thickening the sound, but the use...