Cheap Thrills [Bonus Tracks] [Remaster] (CD - 1968)

Also available with BIG BROTHER & THE HOLDING COMPANY FEATURING JANIS JOPLIN, PEARL, I GOT DEM OL' KOZMIC BLUES AGAIN MAMA! and bonus disc RARE PEARLS in BOX OF PEARLS: THE JANIS JOPLIN COLLECTION.

Also available with PEARL and I GOT DEM OL' KOZMIC BLUES AGAIN MAMA! in a 3-CD set.

Big Brother & The Holding Company: Janis Joplin (vocals); Sam Houston Andrew, III, Peter S. Albin (guitar, bass); James Gurley (guitar); Dave Getz (drums).

Additional personnel: John Simon (piano).

Producer: John Simon.

Reissue producer: Bob Irwin.

Engineers include: Fred Catero, Jerry Hochman, Roy Segal.

Recorded from March-May 1968 & live at The Grande Ballroom, Detroit, Michigan on March 2, 1968.

Originally released on Columbia (9700).

Includes liner notes by John Byrne Cooke.

2 LPs on 1 cassette. Both are available separately on CD and cassette. See individual albums for details.

Full performer name: Big Brother & The Holding Company.

Big Brother & The Holding Company: Janis Joplin (vocals); Sam Houston Andrew, III, Peter S. Albin (guitar, bass); James Gurley (guitar); Dave Getz (drums).

Additional personnel: John Simon (piano).

Producer: John Simon.

Reissue producer: Bob Irwin.

Recorded from March-May 1968 & live at The Grande Ballroom, Detroit, Michigan on March 2, 1968.

Originally released on Columbia (9700).

Includes liner notes by John Byrne Cooke.

2 LPs on 1 CD: Big Brother & The Holding Company's CHEAP THRILLS (1968)/Janis Joplin's PEARL (1970).

Personnel: Janis Joplin (vocals); Sam Andrew (vocals, guitar); James Gurley, Peter Albin (guitar); David Getz (piano, drums); John Simon (piano).

Audio Mixers: Diana Reid Haig; Elliot Mazer; Vic Anesini.

Liner Note Author: John Byrne Cooke.

Recording information: Bill Graham's Winterland, San Francisco, CA (03/02/1968-05/20/1968); Columbia Studio's New York (03/02/1968-05/20/1968); Columbia Studios, Los Angeles, CA (03/02/1968-05/20/1968); Grande Ballroom, Detroit, MI (03/02/1968-05/20/1968); The Grande Ballroom, Detroit, M K Crossing (03/02/1968-05/20/1968).

Authors: David Getz; Sam Andrew.

Editor: Jen Wyler.

Illustrator: Robert Crumb.

Photographers: Baron Wolman; David Gahr; Elliott Landy; Jim Marshall .

Unknown Contributor Role: Elliott Landy.

Arranger: Sam Andrew.

The question is just how, exactly, are you going to go wrong in purchasing these two discs in a single package? Sure, if you already possess these bona fide classics in remastered form with bonus cuts, it would be understandable to pass on them. But if you haven't got them, consider that Big Brother & the Holding Company's Cheap Thrills and Janis Joplin's final recording session, Pearl with her Kozmic Blues Band, are the real bookmarks in her career. The former album yields "Piece of My Heart," "Turtle Blues," "Ball and Chain," and her inimitable rendition of "Summertime," along with some studio outtakes and the rest , while the latter puts "Move Over," "Cry Baby," "Me and Bobby McGee," and "Get It While You Can" in the mix as well. Not that there is any dead weight on either of these sets, especially since the sound is fully remastered. The only downside to this package is the dodgy -- make that downright crappy -- slipcase they are forced into to sell them for one price, but that can easily be recycled since each disc comes in its own jewel case. This is a FINE addition to any serious rock shelf. ~ Thom Jurek

Cheap Thrills, the major-label debut of Janis Joplin, was one of the most eagerly anticipated, and one of the most successful, albums of 1968. Joplin and her band Big Brother & the Holding Company had earned extensive press notice ever since they played the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, but for a year after that their only recorded work was a poorly produced, self-titled album that they'd done early in their history for Mainstream Records; and it took the band and the best legal minds at Columbia Records seven months to extricate them from their Mainstream contract, so that they could sign with Columbia. All the while, demand continued to build, and they still faced the problem of actually delivering something worthy of the press they'd been getting -- Columbia even tried to record them live on-stage on the tour they were in the midst of when the new contract was signed, but somehow the concert tapes from early March of 1968 didn't capture the full depth of their work. So they spent March, April, and May in the studio with producer John Simon and, miraculously, emerged with something that was as exciting as anything they'd done on-stage. When Cheap Thrills appeared in August 1968 -- sporting a Robert Crumb cover on its gatefold jacket that constituted the most elaborate album design ever lavished on a rock album from Columbia Records, as well as a pop-art classic rivaling the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's jacket -- it shot into the charts, reaching number one and going gold within a couple of months, and "Piece of My Heart" became a Top 40 hit and helped to propel the LP to over a million sales. Joplin, with her ear- (and vocal cord-) shredding voice, was the obvious standout. Nobody had ever heard singing as emotional, as desperate, as determined, or as loud as Joplin's, and Cheap Thrills was her greatest moment. Not that everything was done full out -- there were relatively quiet moments on the album that were as compelling as the high-wattage showcases; her rendition of George Gershwin's "Summertime" was the finest rock reinterpretation of a standard done by anybody up to that time (though, in an incident recalled in his autobiography Clive, when Columbia Records president Clive Davis played it to Richard Rodgers to give him an example of some of the sounds that younger audiences of the late '60s were listening to, the 66-year-old Rodgers stomped out of the Columbia corporate offices in fury, vowing never to write another song); and Joplin's own "Turtle Blues" showed that she and the band could turn down and do credible acoustic blues, in something like an authentic period Bessie Smith (or, more properly, Memphis Minnie) sound. Big Brother's backup, typical of the guitar-dominated sound of San Francisco psychedelia, made up in enthusiasm what it lacked in precision. But everybody knew who the real star was, and Joplin played her last gig with Big Brother while the album was still on top of the charts. Neither she nor the band would ever equal it. Heard today, Cheap Thrills is a musical time capsule and remains a showcase for one of rock's most distinctive singers. ~ William Ruhlmann & Bruce Eder

Columbia reissued two of Janis Joplin's two most popular albums, Pearl and Cheap Thrills, as a double-LP set in the late '70s. This isn't necessarily a bad way to acquire this music, but the packaging and fidelity on this set are fairly shoddy. Most fans will be better served by the original vinyl or CD editions. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

After a relatively obscure indie debut album, Big Brother's unforgettable appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival led to CHEAP THRILLS, their major label bow. Its R. Crumb cover art made it a visual standout, but the visceral power contained within heralded Janis Joplin's arrival as a new countercultural blues-rock diva. Partially recorded live at San Francisco's Fillmore, CHEAP THRILLS showed Joplin's affinity for the blues, as she effortlessly covered the standard "Summertime" as well as her heroine Big Mama Thornton's "Ball & Chain." Band conflicts caused by Joplin's high profile within the group resulted in her leaving soon afterward for a solo career.

In the mid-'90s, Sony Music began remastering and upgrading many of the classic albums in their library, and Cheap Thrills got the bonus-track treatment in 1999. The major-label debut of Janis Joplin, the original LP was one of the most eagerly anticipated, and one of the most successful albums of 1968. Joplin and her band Big Brother & the Holding Company had earned extensive press notice ever since they played the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, but for a year after that their only recorded work was a poorly produced, self-titled album that they'd done early in their history for Mainstream Records; it took the band and the best legal minds at Columbia Records seven months to extricate them from their Mainstream contract, so that they could sign with Columbia. All the while demand continued to build, and they still faced the problem of actually delivering something worthy of press they'd been getting -- Columbia even tried to record them live on-stage on the tour they were in the midst of when the new contract was signed, but somehow the concert tapes from early March of 1968 didn't capture the full depth of their work. So they spent March, April, and May in the studio with producer John Simon and, miraculously, emerged with something that was as exciting as anything they'd done on-stage. When Cheap Thrills appeared in August 1968 -- sporting a Robert Crumb cover on its gatefold jacket that constituted the most elaborate album design ever lavished on a rock album from Columbia Records, as well as a pop-art classic rivaling the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's jacket -- it shot into the charts, reaching number one and going gold within a couple of months, and "Piece of My Heart" became a Top 40 hit and helped to propel the LP to over a million sales. Joplin, with her ear- (and vocal cord-) shredding voice, was the obvious standout. Nobody had ever heard singing as emotional, as desperate, as determined, or as loud as Joplin's, and Cheap Thrills was her greatest moment. Not that everything was done full out -- there were relatively quiet moments on the album that were as compelling as the high-wattage showcases; her rendition of George Gershwin's "Summertime" was the finest rock reinterpretation of a standard done by anybody up to that time (though, in an incident recalled in his autobiography Clive, when Columbia Records president Clive Davis played it to Richard Rodgers to give him an example of some of the sounds that younger audiences of the '60s were listening to, the 66-year-old Rodgers stomped out of Columbia's corporate offices in fury vowing never to write another song); and Joplin's own "Turtle Blues" showed that she and the band could turn down and do credible acoustic blues, in something like an authentic period Bessie Smith (or, more properly, Memphis Minnie) sound. Big Brother's backup, typical of the guitar-dominated sound of San Francisco psychedelia, made up in enthusiasm what it lacked in precision. But everybody knew who the real star was, and Joplin played her last gig with Big Brother while the album was still on top of the charts. Neither she nor the band would ever equal it. Heard today, Cheap Thrills is a musical time capsule and remains a showcase for one of rock's most distinctive singers. The expanded reissue greatly enhances the crispness of the sound on the original album's seven cuts, and that alone would be justification for getting this CD. But additionally, the producers have added four bonus tracks: "Road Block" and "Flower in the Sun" derived from the early studio sessions for the record, and "Flower in the Sun," in particular, is notable for showing off some early manifestations of the band's lyrical side, which would play an important (but oft-overlooked) role in the LP's overall sound and success; as it is, it shows that the group could cut a serious sonic figure even with its instruments turned down, but they would do better work in that vein later on in the recording process, which explains why these otherwise worthy tracks were left behind; and there are two live cuts from the tour that Columbia recorded, in hopes of debuting the group with a live album. That idea never came to fruition, as the taped results somehow missed the full impact and excitement of the group on-stage -- but "Catch Me Daddy" and "Magic of Love" do reveal something of how good the band did sound, and something of how compelling Joplin's interaction was with the band she was soon to dump. Coupled with the extensive annotation, this is the version of the album to get on CD. ~ William Ruhlmann & Bruce Eder minimize