120. Big Brother and the Holding Company — Cheap Thrills (1968)

Simply incredible cover art

1. I first listened to this on the road driving to get my first COVID vaccine (Pfizer fam what up?). Normally I like to listen to these records with some accompanying reading material but in this case, I went in blind. I’d never heard of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and three songs in I couldn’t stop thinking: “this really sounds like Janis Joplin.” Four songs in, I had to look it up to confirm, since that fourth song is “Piece Of My Heart.” Indeed — Big Brother and the Holding Company is where Janis got her start! #themoreyouknow.gif
2. That was one of only two post-listen revelations, the second being that this is not in fact a live album. It’s simply engineered to sound live, with fake crowd noise and an introduction from Bill Graham himself. Sure had me fooled. It helps that the band has an electric feel, projecting energy in the studio that overwhelms you as though this were a live recording. This is a heavy band, which makes sense — you need to be pretty intense to partner up with Janis Joplin and not lose yourself.
3. “Piece Of My Heart” is obviously the most famous track here, but I’m partial as well to “Summertime,” one of the coolest versions of this standard I’ve heard. The rest of the album holds up as a thoroughly strong blues acid rock album, rollicking its way through seven strong tracks. Joplin would leave the band after this to go solo, which shouldn’t be surprising given how obviously revelatory she was. I have no idea if those solo albums will make this list (she was allegedly shooting $200 worth of heroin per day by early 1969, which is the equivalent of $1400 today…woof) so I’m glad to have gotten this.
4. I can’t end this post without mentioning that insane Robert Crumb cover art above. There’s so much happening, some of it perhaps now problematic, but man, he really went for it there.

One Essential Song:

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