Janis Joplin was no model of restraint. From the rasping roar that could belong to no other singer, to the appetite for booze and drugs that would cut her down at age 27, evidence that rock's ugly duckling teen outcast turned feather-adorned swan favoured excess over moderation was there for all to see.
Only on her posthumously released final studio LP Pearl (1971) did the Texan tornado hint at a mellowing of her rambunctious musical personality.
Joplin died of a heroin overdose before completing the album, leaving the song Buried Alive In The Blues without a vocal track. Its inclusion as an instrumental serves both as a poignant pointer to unfulfilled promise and a respectful nod to her new backing group, the Full Tilt Boogie Band.
Full Tilt's measured playing, coupled with astute deskwork by onetime Doors producer Paul A. Rothchild, gave Joplin scope to explore subtleties where albums with former cohorts Big Brother And The Holding Company and the Kozmic Blues Band had not.
Where once her full-throated, ecstatic bluesy howl had been swamped in a soup of psychedelic rock, here it stepped forward to reveal that its awesome power had a matching, more disciplined quality.
Which is not to say Pearl doesn't contain some of the finest examples of Joplin's instinctive, stirring and heart-tearing vocal exhortations - both Cry Baby and A Woman Left Lonely hit terrifying peaks that have never since been scaled.
But in the punchy soul of Move Over and Half Moon, the gospel blues of My Baby and Get It While You Can, and the quirky rawness of a cappella track Mercedes Benz Joplin shows she's no one-trick pony.
