Big Brother & The Holding Company – Big Brother & The Holding Company

Was this cut too hot? Janis’ voice on mine is so trebly that is sizzly and sibilant. The bass and the drums sound great, but her voice sounds terrible. Anyone else have this issue? Or is this just an issue with my copy?

Seek this one out. This early Janis Joplin sounds great in mono and includes 2 bonus tracks.
Coo-Coo and The Last Time can only be found as bonus tracks to the LP on certain reissues.
Not available as a single or on compilations. Coo-Coo is an early version of Oh, Sweet Mary.

1st US press Abbey Pressing is very quiet with great stereo separation. No background noise between tracks or within tracks. I purchased a visually VG+ LP that plays NM all the way. Very surprised by the high quality vinyl and the stereo mix. This is not a simulated stereo recording.

Extremely groovy late-1960's acid-folk-rock with a stupendously spacey stereo-mix. It sounds like Joplin's voice is triple-tracked on some songs to great effect. Janis & The Boys knock it out of the park! Good fidelity & nice bass.

Decent band with relatively unknown incredible singer unleash respectable initial blues/rock/psych demo released unbeknown to the band following their successful appearance at Monterey Pop Festival. Confirms the phenomenon that the mid-60’s period San Francisco sound that sounded so fantastic live, lost almost everything when translated in the studio. Catches a glimmer of the adrenalin driven passion the band would soon deliver.
Promising taste of things to come.

This appears to be a simple label error, and not an actual hybrid pressing, as the runout info indicates the mono master on both sides.

Even to the enthusiast, the first Big Brother & The Holding Co. LP is often treated as an afterthought, though there are several things of relevant interest here. The first is the marvelous, freaky acid journey "All Is Loneliness," which alone makes this record worth hearing, more than anything else on the label. Powell St. John (later to work with the 13th Floor Elevators and Mother Earth) also wrote the hit "Bye, Bye Baby," which provides an interesting connection. Janis Joplin's voice channels that highly-sought-after blues howl, which would also later be captured by e.g. Robert Plant -- and when it's used right, it _really_ works.

This album was originally released as a short-duration 10-track venture on Mainstream records circa August 1967 in both mono and stereo. These original pressings tend to be quite noisy. After "Bye, Bye Baby" became a hit, Columbia acquired the rights for distribution and reissued the album starting in the '70s with 12 tracks, adding a non-LP single at the end of each side. The album has also been reissued several times on CD, with a remix appearing in 1999 as done by Vic Anesini. The remix is quite good and emulates the original mix so well that it apparently was not even recognized as a remix for more than 20 years; for the audiophile scrutineers, that may be the "best" version. For archivists, the 2016 high-res remaster has good fidelity with lots of headroom, and seems to be closer the original Mainstream vinyl if the left channel is amplified by about 3db.

My copy has the radio station timing sheet shown on the promo version listed elsewhere on this release. The record has no promo markings and is identical to this release.

Matrix / Runout (Runout A, Stamped): ACTZ 3140 K4
Matrix / Runout (Runout B, Stamped): ACTZ 3141 K3

VARIANT Matrix / Runout (Side One, runout stamped, except "1 T" etched): AL 30631-1A 1 T o
Matrix / Runout (Side Two, runout stamped, except "1 T" etched): BL 30631-1K 1 T o