Tuesday’s Tune: Combination of the Two

Oh, Janis. x

She can, at times, be like the kitten you fall in love with who has no home, has been out in the rain for a night, and you just want to take her in. The power and emotion that can burst from this little kitten though is anything but small. The light and dark of her voice, the tease and the wail she can deliver, has me on the verge of pouring into every emotion, sometime all at once.

I love this song. Combination of the Two by Big Borther & The Holding Company, 1967.

The footage below of Combination of the Two is from their live performance at Montery Pop Festival in 1967. The documentary this clip is taken from, Nine Hundred Nights, also features interviews with James Gurley, Janis Joplin, Nick Gravenites, Lenny Kaye and Ellen Willis, with narration by Rip Torn.

WIKI notes: The band’s historic performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967 attracted national and international attention. The band was scheduled to play on Saturday afternoon, with a set which included “Down on Me”, “Combination of The Two”, “Harry”, “Roadblock” and “Ball and Chain”. However, the band decided not to allow Pennebaker’s film crew to film and record them without paying them, and ordered the crew to turn its cameras off. The festival promoters thought the band performance was great, and asked them to play again the next evening in order to record it on film, but they played only two songs: “Combination of The Two” and a short version of “Ball and Chain” (without James Gurley’s guitar solo). They signed a contract with Columbia Records that November, and Albert Grossman became their manager.