Rock-tober 17, 2017

Readers of these pages know that the bulk of my music collection dates from the previous millennium. These days, when Andrea and I watch an awards show and the musical entertainment comes on, I'm always asking, "Who's this, again?" She's way more in tune with the contemporary scene than this old school curmudgeon.

I've often looked at songs and artists on her playlists and not recognized a single name. Every now and then she'll surprise me, like the time I found out Metallica was part of her collection. Despite my inclination to dismiss anything released beyond 1995, once in a blue moon the musical stars align, and I'll come across someone on her list I actually like . One such artist was P!nk.

Before she joined the ranks of rock's single moniker elites, she was born Alecia Beth Moore on September 8, 1979, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Her 2000 debut album, Can't Take Me Home, went double platinum. She followed up with six more albums to date, along with nearly 40 singles. In her career thus far, she received 129 award nominations and took 100 of them. Among her wins were three Grammys, five AMAs, and in 2009 she was named Billboard's Pop Song Artist of the Decade.

My first introduction to P!nk was her 2010 Grammy performance of "Glitter in the Air." I was impressed. Her voice was powerful, strong, and sultry, and her previous experience as a dancer served her well in the physicality of her number. In interviews afterward, people were amazed that despite the aerial aspect of her performance, she was not lipsyncing.

I started listening to her other offerings, and the deep power of her voice came through in everything I heard. I was particularly pleased to find this cover of Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee." First performed by Roger Miller in 1969, it was also recorded by artists with backgrounds as diverse as Kenny Rogers and the Grateful Dead. Janis Joplin's version was probably the most recognized, as it posthumously hit the #1 spot in 1971. While P!nk has called Janis her "favorite singer of all time," she has yet to release "Me and Bobby McGee" as a single. If you close your eyes and listen to both versions, you'd be hard pressed to tell them apart. Hopefully this will be a future single for her. I would be very curious to see if a P!nk rendition would chart as well Joplin's.