At the time of this festival, Joplin and her band hadn't had much success so far. They'd released one album in 1967, simply called "Big Brother and the Holding Company," but it had only reached Number 60 in the U.S. charts. They'd put out a few singles, but only one of them, "Down on Me," had charted at all. In August, just one month after this concert, their second album, "Cheap Thrills," would be released. It would hit Number One in the U.S. and sell millions, becoming a classic. But that was still in the future.
Despite that relative lack of success so far, the buzz about Joplin had already turned her into a star.
I previously posted a link to a Rolling Stone Magazine review of the entire Newport festival. It was written by famed rock critic (and future producer for Bruce Springsteen) Jon Landau. He was a real curmudgeon in his sour review, disliking most all the acts in the festival, especially Joplin and her band. (He even wrote, "I should note the audience loved every minute of [her performance] and that I was singularly isolated in my reaction.") But even he had to admit that her set was "unquestionably the hit of the festival."
Joplin and her band was the last act to perform on the July 27th day of the festival. Technically, their set was on the 28th, because they went on well after midnight. A curfew was enforced, so the band had to play a shorter set than they wanted. Many or even most of the people in the crowd waited through folk acts all day in order to see Joplin, and they'd gotten bored and restless.
However, all that changed when Joplin took the stage. Landau later wrote that the song "Ball and Chain" in particular earned a "massive standing ovation." And at the end of the set, "[Joplin] and the audience just beamed at each other through her two encores."
Here's that Landau review again, in case you're curious to read the whole thing:
The Newport Folk Festival: 1968 (rollingstone.com)
This album is 35 minutes long.
088 Piece of My Heart (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
089 talk (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
090 Summertime (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
091 talk (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
092 Coo Coo (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
093 talk (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
094 Combination of the Two (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
095 talk (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
096 Ball and Chain (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
097 talk (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
098 Down on Me (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
099 talk (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
100 Piece of My Heart [Reprise] (Big Brother & the Holding Company)
https://www.upload.ee/files/16033565/NewprtFlkFestivl_1968_07BigBrothrtheHoldngCompny.zip.html
The cover photo comes from this exact concert.
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