Cheap Thrills - Janis & Big Brother 50th

My slipcase says Limited Edition No 0572. It's still available at Acoustic Sounds.

Big Brother The Holding Company-Cheap Thrills-Gold CD|Acoustic Sounds

 

Dear lord, please tell me you’re joking . . . “Here I come Elizabeth. I’m coming to join you honey . . .”

 

Acoustic Sounds wants 50 bucks for this now but there is a copy on Ebay with a 30 dollar buy it now price. If your interested try there first.

 

I have always wondered about that MFSL version but I have always been so happy with Steve's version, I've never jumped on the SACD.

 

There's also an older Sony SACD with a surround mix.

 

Listened to the AF Gold and now on to Bear's Carousel Ballroom 6/23/68.

 

Is the Bear version in the pic an LP or CD hard to tell.

 

LP, but I'm listening to a Japanese blue spec CD.
popsike.com - Janis Joplin Big Brother And The Holding Company Live At The Carousel Ballroom - auction details

 

I’m more interested in the CD.

 

Live At The Carousel Ballroom 1968 [Blu-spec CD2]
Janis Joplin
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1800yen
(1944yen Tax incl. in Japan)
US$ 16.87

Points You Earn 3% (54p)
Release Date July 27, 2016
Availability In Stock at Supplier:Usually ships in 2-4 days
Live At The Carousel Ballroom 1968 [Blu-spec CD2] Janis Joplin CD Album

 

Ordered up! $14 bucks including shipping using the bonus points I had sitting in my account. Wasn’t even aware of this release. Thank you, sir.

 

52 years! I can fondly remember the day I first heard this great album during the first week of release...I was blown away. It was a hot day in August...always reminds me of summer and sweat...

 

Sounds like a Neil Diamond album.

 

LOL...that's funny.

 

It may require a reminder to indicate the Special Number here in the forum prior to discarding the unwanted slip case. Other members undoubtedly seek this sensitive information.

 

Re Pearl Sessions

It is. And so is Sex, Dope & Cheap Thrills. Still listening to this weekly since last December. I Need A Man To Love take 3!
The vinyl is typical noisy Sony. What are you gonna do? Gotta have this on 2LP, though. Excellent art direction and big liners. MP3 included.

 

A little over a year later, this thread resurfaces and I'm on a Big Brother '68 binge again (interrupting the Hot Rats Sessions celebration). The expanded Cheap Thrills, the Winterland and Carousel sets - so much great stuff.

I figure my enthusiasm is split 50/50 - Janis' great singing on the one hand; Big Brother tunes and arrangements and esp James Gurley's wild noise excursions on the other. Not surprising that a lot of people like one and not the other. Just sad that Big Brother's 'technical limitations', totally irrelevant in my opinion next to the brilliant conceptual thinking, are still considered a thing. And ironic that Clive Davis' enthusiasm for them at Monterey, leading to them getting the money and freedom to produce their experimental masterpiece, would morph into Davis urging Janis to ditch those weirdos...

The dichotomy, the commercial pressures, the drugs - I guess they weren't built to last. Hard to imagine them approximating the lengthy and unlikely Grateful Dead-style career. And depressing to think about an Airplane/Starship-type trajectory. Well, we'll always have 1968...

 

Hot Rats Sessions!! Amazing box. Wow. Takes that album to a whole 'nother level now.

I concur. Brilliant analytical thinking on yr part! Ha.

I can understand it, however. After all, hindsight is 20/20. Put J.J. with a more 'accomplished' band = more radio play, more records sold. But we know where the magic resided, and we also know she was not equipped, not at that point anyway, to handle all the exposure, both musically and from the standpoint of publicity & marketing.

Indeed.

 

The most haunting & saddest version of Summertime. Live at Matrix, 1967

 

Which songs on the main album are live?

 

It wasn't all Davis. Janis's ego was growing out of control, with everyone telling her she was the star and didn't need Big Brother. And she really wanted to go more into a soul Stax rhythm and blues bag, which needed a more conventional band with horns. Unfortunately, the band and the musical results were TOO conventional. Her best days were with the wild experimentation anything goes who cares if it makes sense Big Brother days.

 

Only Ball & Chain from the 4/13/68 Winterland show.

 

I don't agree with that. It wasn't Janis' ego, although every great artist has one. A big part of the problem was the band's jealousy of Janis' growing fame, her musicianship was way beyond theirs, and most of the band were on drugs, and were having fun. The 4 guys didn't have her ambition. She was an innovative singer, and surpassed them musically. She kept growing, the band didn't.
Big Brother were a great band with Janis and they should have stayed together longer. Just like Tina was the star of the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, Janis was always the show with BBHC.

 

She was an innovative singer but I don’t agree she surpassed them musically. There’s nothing on Kozmic Blues that’s better musically than the material on Cheap Thrills IMO. The band is slicker but also less innovative and less inspired. Her singing is no better than on Cheap Thrills. I get she wanted to try a different style of music than she was doing with Big Brother - but different isn’t better in this case.

Janis had a rapport and a musical communication with Big Brother that she didn’t have with the Kozmic Blues Band. But the loss of that rapport was probably inevitable as she allowed Clive and others to elevate her to star status over the band and put her in the role of dictating the musical direction.