Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Label: Columbia Records
Release: 1968
Rating: 4/5
Big Brother And The Holding Company’s poorly produced album, the one that weighed on the conscience of Janis and her Big Brother, was bound to sink into oblivion once Cheap Thrills arrived in 1968. With its unusual cover of caricatures of the band members by Robert Crumb and Janis’s ear-splitting voice, it shot straight to the top of the charts. Originally they wanted to call the album Dope, Sex, and Cheap Thrills, which was supposed to be their unofficial motto, but Columbia Records wouldn’t approve a title like that, so they had to settle for just Cheap Thrills.
They had already made a name for themselves the year before at the Monterey Pop festival, where Janis enchanted the crowd with a cover of “Ball and Chain” by the great blues singer Big Mama Thornton, which you can also find on this album. Nobody had ever heard singing that was so emotional and so decisive at the same time, so full of desperation, as Janis’s. And let’s not even get started on how loud her vocals were! With Cheap Thrills she really proved she was one of a kind. If she was pushed into the background on the first album with Big Brother, here she truly stands out. Her name spread around faster than wildfire. Highlights of the album include a great cover of Gershwin’s ballad “Summertime”, where a gentle guitar sound and Janis’s emotionally charged vocals caress your ears, and the song “Piece of My Heart”, which wrote Janis into rock history, since almost everyone recognizes her by it. “Turtle Blues” stands out strongly too, with Big Brother and Janis going back to the very roots of blues, to the days of Bessie Smith. Despite such an excellent record, which neither Big Brother nor Janis managed to repeat later, this is sadly where their shared road ends, since not everything was as perfect as it looked at first glance. Sure, their gigs were full of success, but once they found themselves in the studio, trouble started. The guys were often so lost in the company of such a dominant singer that they frequently couldn’t get in sync at all, or their playing sounded completely out of tune, while Janis nailed every take with unusual ease. The resulting complications, caused by the obvious differences in quality within the lineup itself, eventually led to a tough decision: Janis leaves Big Brother & The Holding Company, goes her own way and continues her career as a solo singer. Still, Cheap Thrills captures the band’s unexpected darkness on one side and their wild vitality on the other, and so it remains one of the most influential products of sixties rock’n’roll.
Lineup
Janis Joplin – vocals
Peter Albin – bass
David Getz – drums
James Gurley – guitar
Sam Andrew – guitar
Production
John Simon
Track List
1. Combination Of The Two
2. I Need A Man To Love
3. Summertime
4. Piece of My Heart
5. Turtle Blues
6. Oh, Sweet Mary
7. Ball And Chain
