Even if Janis Joplin isn't around to defend herself or collect royalties, she's far luckier than most gone-but-still-under-contract stars, because Farewell Song, her "new" LP, is a good record. Unfortunately, Joplin joins the ranks of artists whose work has been exhumed in an orgy of necrophilia that does neither rock & roll nor its aficionados any favors. Though Farewell Song's nine cuts, salvaged from various live shows and studio sessions (mostly with Big Brother and the Holding Company), don't add up to a definitive Joplin statement, Elliot Mazer's production — or reproduction, whichever the case may be — manages to draw the disparate pieces into a coherent whole.

Aside from the maundering descriptions in Country Joe McDonald's self-serving liner notes, there's nothing grim or "chilling" about these tunes, which capture Joplin in her raw, histrionic beginnings and move on to her lady-about-to-come-into-her-own phase. "Misery'n" is as strong as any number from her Big Brother and the Holding Company days, undeniably the period in which she was an eqùal band member first and a star second. But "One Night Stand," with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band on hand to underline the subtle smoothing out of her vocal style, is my favorite. The singer's words to a would-be suitor ("Don't you know you're nothing more than a one-night stand?") sum up the power reversals that preceded her dizzying spiral downward, and Janis Joplin's performance is one of her crooning, crying best.

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."