Big Brother & Holding Company – Cheap Thrills

Reviewed by: Stephen Board

Originally to be titled Dope, Sex and Cheap Thrills, this record by Big Brother & Holding Company is a real gem. A shining stone on a beach of back catalogue confusion. Spilling out onto the streets with the musty air of the San Fransisco acid-rock scene of the late 60s, Big Brother and Holding Company played the blues like no other band at the time.

A cohesive unit of James Gurley and Sam Andrew on guitar, Pete Albin on bass and David Getz on drums, the band required that something extra. Boy did they get it when a Texan girl with a raspy voice joined the band. The vocal starlet, Janis Joplin, had arrived. Word spread following their appearance at 1967’s Monterey Festival, and Cheap Thrill was released the following year.

Gritty blues leaks from every pore in the songs I Need A Man To Love and Combination Of The Two, but this is an album that surprises you by the fact you know two of the songs, without realising: the mesmerising beauty of Gershwin’s Summertime, and the awesome Piece Of My Heart – a song which is taken for granted now.

Joplin’s voice is astounding and breathes real soul, the kind that gives Joss Stone wet dreams. Indeed this is an album that could never be produced now. Joplin would be given a makeover and the title would be changed to The Blues Sessions to aim for some margin of credibility. But in the 60s this was the start of it all. Times were indeed a changing, and Joplin became what can only be described as the first true female rock star.

Turtle Blues is a honky tonk piano tune, which would now be associated with Jools Holland, but it sounds so fresh on Cheap Thrills. Then just when you thought the album was getting a little too easy listening, Oh Sweet Mary blows you out of the water with four minutes of dirty guitar licks that give a full-bodied representation of how I imagine those days to have felt. Ball And Chain then heads straight for the gutter to dig out those real blues enthusiasts with a nine-minute assault on the senses that demonstrates Joplin’s vocal range superbly.

Cheap Thrills has now been extended to include four tracks not originally available, including two live tracks from the Grande Ballroom, one of San Fransisco’s most eclectic venues of the era. All four are worthy of a place on the disc and really get your rock and roll juices flowing, just as much as Led Zeppelin did in the years to come. Okay, you don’t get Jimmy Page’s guitar genius, but the vocals from Janis Joplin pick you up and dump you in a dream world in the same way as Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit, and leaves you feeling the ‘Summer of Love’ (number one) from inside.

Buying old albums can be a risky business, and with so many classics of the time available it’s easy to see past Cheap Thrills. With The Beatles, Stones, Doors, Dylan, Hendrix and Zeppelin having so many to choose from, where do you start? Well if it’s the 60’s spirit you’re looking for then you really can’t get any closer than this million selling album, without the use of psychedelic drugs. Peace!