Take It! Take Another Little Piece of the 60's
By ANGELA FRUCCI
http://www.nytimes.com/20...nted=print

Remember Steve Mann, that seminal 60's guitar picker? Those who don't may perhaps be forgiven: he played with the greats, but made very few recordings. Then mental illness, made worse by drugs, cut his career short. Some fans assumed he was dead.

As if to prove them wrong, he has just released a new CD - "Steve Mann, Alive and Pickin' " (Bella Roma Music). But the biggest surprise of all may be some long-lost tracks featuring Janis Joplin.

In 1964, Mr. Mann lived in Santa Clara, Calif., with Jorma Kaukonen (of Jefferson Airplane and, later, Hot Tuna). Joplin was seeking an accompanist for a Congress of Racial Equality benefit. "She called me at Jorma's, and I answered the phone," he recalled. He'd met her a year before in Los Angeles at a hootenanny at the Troubadour.

So he took his 30-pound Grundig reel-to-reel on a bus to her apartment in San Francisco, where the duo recorded into the night. "Just a recorder, a bottle of Southern Comfort and a guitar," he said. "She picked the songs; she had the material ready to go, she was singing really clear."

He returned home the next morning and went on to Los Angeles. He thought he had the reels with him, but they were left behind at Mr. Kaukonen's apartment.

Steve Mann never knew what happened to the songs until almost a year ago, when a guitar student named Ken Edwards sent him a CD filled with various guitar outtakes, including some of Mr. Kaukonen. At the end of the CD, there was Joplin, accompanied by Mr. Mann's guitar.

Mr. Edwards says he'd been given the recordings, on digital audio tape, by Mr. Kaukonen's informal archivist.

"Jorma probably re-used the tapes," Mr. Edwards said. "And all that survived was at the end of the tapes."

"The beginning tracks were most likely recorded over," he added.

The scratchy, informal Joplin/Mann session includes "Winin' Boy Blues," "Two Nineteen Train," and "Trouble in Mind." Despite the poor audio quality, the recordings are precious, a rare relic of Joplin. Her voice is young, soulful, sultry, with its signature nasal timbre.

"One take," Mr. Mann said, still impressed. ANGELA FRUCCI

Cool.