Janis Joplin – "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)" (1969)

If it’s a dream 

I don’t want

Nobody to wake me

My school had a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good jazz band.  My senior year, we travelled to a state university in a nearby city to take part in a big high-school jazz band contest.  

To prepare for that competition, we had to show up at school early every day for a couple of weeks to rehearse. 

My high school

My mother usually drove me to school, but I’m guessing that our special practice sessions started too early for me to wait for her to give me a ride.  My father left for his job much earlier than she did, so I probably had to go with him – even though that meant I got to school 20 or 30 minutes before I needed to be there for rehearsals.

I have a vivid recollection of killing the time before those practice sessions began by dropping by the school’s journalism room and listening to today’s featured song a few times to get myself psyched up to rehearse.

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“Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)” is the first track on Janis Joplin’s I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! album.

I have no idea why there was a copy of that album in the journalism room, which is where the high school newspaper and yearbook staffs worked.  As I recall, there was also a copy of Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers album there.  (The lyrics to one of the songs on that album included the line “Up against the wall, motherf*cker,” so you had to pick your spots if you wanted to listen to it.)

Janis Joplin

I owned both albums, so it’s possible that I had brought those LPs to school.  But I was very protective of my albums, so I don’t see myself bringing those two records to school and leaving them there.

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“Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)” doesn’t waste any time.  After a four-bar introduction, Janis Joplin jumps in – applying her trademark melisma to the word “try” – and we’re off to the races.

Producer Gabriel Mekler brings everything he’s got – trumpets, saxophones, keyboards, backup singers – but Janis more than holds her own.

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Gabriel Mekler, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1977 – he was only 35 years old – produced not only Kozmic Blues but also the best Steppenwolf and Three Dog Night albums.

The “I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues
Again Mama!”album cover

Steppenwolf originally called themselves Jack London and the Sparrows.  Mekler suggested they change their name to Steppenwolf after he read the Herman Hesse novel.

As the producer of “Born to Be Wild,” Mekler already had a song in the inaugural class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.  

And now he has one in the inaugural class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME, too.

Not too shabby.

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Click here to listen to “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder),” which was co-written by Jerry Ragovoy and Chip Taylor.  (Taylor – who was born James Voight and is the brother of actor Jon Voight – decided to give songwriting a shot after failing in his attempt to become a professional golfer.  He also wrote “Angel of the Morning” and “Wild Thing.”)

Click on the link below to buy today’s featured song from Amazon: