Big Brother And The Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin (1967) [Japanese Reissue 1994]

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Big Brother And The Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin (1967) [Japanese Reissue 1994]

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"Big Brother & the Holding Company," is an early recording by Big Brother and the Holding Company, a psychedelic blues rock San Francisco-based band during the late 1960's. The record survives largely because of their great, great chick singer, Janis Joplin, of course, who joined them on a Chicago gig. Although Joplin fans will know that she did not, unfortunately, survive the 1970's, as she passed on October 4, 1970 (aged 27), in Los Angeles, California. But in her brief career, despite her troubled life, she left behind a stunning, gutsy repertory of work that has long since floated free of, and outlived, Big Brother. This record, however, was laid down about six months before she (and they) achieved lasting blazing stardom at the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival.

This record, although made rather early in her all-too short career, functions almost as a best-of: it's got a number of her hits on it, including "Bye Bye Baby," "Easy Rider,""Call on Me,"and a very bluesy "Down on Me,"all delivered thrillingly, and in her trademark growling/shouting style that owed a lot to the women blues shouters before her. Weren't very many female blues shouters in Janis's day, although, actually, one of the best of them was the Chicago-based Koko Taylor (What It Takes: The Chess Years (Expanded Edition)). (Somehow or another, I have to tell you, I saw Taylor perform twice, each time seemingly wearing a house dress and $10 wig, but she tore the roof off the venue, even Brooklyn's Prospect Park – without a roof!)

I also actually somehow managed to see Janis live, with "Big Brother," performing this repertory, at a famous venue of the time, Bill Graham's Fillmore East, on New York's Lower East Side, when it really was pretty scrappy. All these years later, I still remember the expectant hush when the house lights went down, the sweet aroma of various illegal substances, and Joplin's electrifying performance. It was quite a night, I can tell you. But don't wish you could have been there yourself that would make you as old as me….

Review by Stephanie De Pue

The debut, self-titled album from Big Brother & the Holding Company is an evolving paradigm, ten tracks initially issued on Mainstream Records, a label that would have success in 1968 with "Journey to the Center of the Mind" by Ted Nugent's Amboy Dukes. Unfortunately for Janis Joplin and Big Brother & the Holding Company, the respectable performances and all of the material on this disc are undercut by a weak production that sounds rushed. Recorded on December 12, 13, and 14 of 1966, it's quite telling that perhaps the best two songs from the sessions, Peter Albin's tribal-sounding "Coo Coo," and Janis Joplin's fiery "The Last Time," were only available on a 45 rpm and played as treats on FM radio "rare tape" nights. Those two songs have an intensity and drama missing from laid-back album cuts like "Easy Rider" and "Intruder." Big Brother's strength sans Janis was their ability to experiment and rely heavily on ideas to make up for their lack of musical prowess. Sad to say, there is little of that experimentation here. Even a potential science fiction Peter Albin composition, "Light Is Faster Than Sound," comes off like an audition tape instead of the hit it could have been had it the cosmic explosion of a "Journey to the Center of the Mind." The album does contain interesting studies of future classics, like Moondog's "All Is Loneliness" (the street poet eventually signing with Columbia himself), and Joplin's creative arrangement of "Down on Me," making it more of an entertaining textbook than a deep musical experience. It was the lack of product from superstar Janis Joplin which kept putting an emphasis on this release with little else available to satisfy rabid fans who couldn't get enough Janis.

Review by Joe Viglione, Allmusic.com

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Big Brother And The Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin (1967) [Japanese Reissue 1994]

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Big Brother And The Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin (1967) [Japanese Reissue 1994]

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Big Brother And The Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin (1967) [Japanese Reissue 1994]

Close