Big Brother & The Holding Company - Cheap Thrills

This album has just got to be the jewel in the crown of Joplin's work. On the sleeve notes 'The Village Voice' review describes Joplin being for you "...Like the girl next door, but you live on the Lower East Side..."

For me, Joplin IS the streetwise village voice of those hot 'n smokey San Francisco nights of the period. She's the embodiment of the lyrics she sings, immersed in a liquor-soaked and gravel-voiced delivery, accentuated by awesome crystal-sweet high notes, all wrapped up in a driving package that's supported by a band who know what they're doing- and just where to do it. They had cut their teeth with an eponymous album on the Mainstream label but this next work, after signing with Albert Grossman, has the band really chewing hard and showing its class. The live recording of Ball And Chain captures the essence and spirit of where they were at in mid '68. The other six tracks are studio numbers recorded at Columbia, although their clever engineering work provides a 'back room juke-joint' intensity to the performances.

There are no individual highlights on this album. The whole thing is a 1000-watt highlight, right down to the iconic sound of breaking glass on Turtle Blues- no doubt an empty bottle of Southern Comfort that slipped from Joplin's grasp in a magical moment of vocal delivery...

Initially to be titled Dope, Sex, and Cheap Thrills, but vetoed by the band's management, Cheap Thrills is an album which captures that 'turn on, tune in, drop out' psychedelic San Francisco moment of the late 60s perfectly. The sleeve's "Approved by Hell's Angels - Frisco" logo and Robert 'Mr Natural' Crumb's cover art simply adds to the thrill.