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Album Review: Janis Joplin & Jorma Kaukonen - The Legendary Typewriter Tape: 6/25/64 Jorma’s House

Tappity, tappity, tap.

Though she is not credited, Margareta Kaukonen is a titular presence on the Legendary Typewriter Tape, busily writing in the background as Janis Joplin and Jorma Kaukonen work out their coffee-house blues set on a summer afternoon in 1964.

Joplin sings. Kaukonen plays guitar. And his boots provide rhythmic accompaniment to the typing in process.

Clackety, clackety, clack.

Then unknown and trying to change that, Joplin and Kaukonen run through six tracks including “Trouble in Mind,” “Hesitation Blues” and the Joplin original “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” They flesh out a proper ending to “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” and talk of opening gigs with Joplin, in chiffon dress, emerging from behind a gold lamé curtain.

Tap. Tappity, tap tap.

The recording has long circulated among fans and Kaukonen sometimes mentions it when he plays intimate gigs at his Fur Peace Ranch in Ohio. Now restored and officially released with the unwieldy but accurate name, The Legendary Typewriter Tape: 6/25/64 Jorma’s House, it's more than an aural glimpse of two pre-fame legends - though it certainly is that.

More importantly for listeners in 2022, it’s quality music - the kind of thing people would want to hear even if Janis Joplin hadn’t become one of the greatest blues singers to emerge from the 1960s and Jorma Kaukonen hadn’t become a co-founder of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, a band with which he still plays some of these songs to this day.

Clack, clack. Tap, tap. Clack.

Grade card: Janis Joplin & Jorma Kaukonen - The Legendary Typewriter Tape: 6/25/64 Jorma’s House - A