The 500 - #338 - Cheap Thrills - Big Brother And The Holding Company

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 338

Album Title: Cheap Thrills

Artist: Big Brother And The Holding Company

Genre: Blues Rock, Acid Rock

Recorded: Columbia Studios, California. One track live at Winterland Ballroom

Released: August, 1968

My age at release: 3

How familiar was I with it before this week: One song

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, #372, dropping 34 places

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Piece Of My Heart

Cheap Thrills was the second studio release from the American blues and acid rock band Big Brother and The Holding Company. It was also their last record with singer Janis Joplin, who went on to launch a solo career. Her second and final record, Pearl, appears at #125 on The 500. 

Pearl - Janis Joplin (1971)

Originally, Cheap Thrills was to be called Sex, Dope & Cheap Thrills, but the record label considered the title too controversial in 1968. The 50th anniversary version, released in 2018, restored the formerly contentious title

50th Anniversary Release of the record (2018)

Times have changed. The word "sex" raises few eyebrows nowadays and the term "dope", a colloquialism for recreational drugs, seems quaint and even amusing. Interestingly, the original album artwork generated more controversy with modern audiences than the title itself did half a century previously. Created by underground comic artist and satirist Robert Crumb (aka: R. Crumb), one panel features an African-American woman with a crying baby, now considered (and with good reason) racist.

Close up of a panel on the Cheap Thrills record sleeve

Crumb was a well known contributor in the world of underground comix, which grew in popularity in the 60s and 70s. Unlike mainstream comics, these pulp-publications displayed explicit content, including nudity, drug-use, sexuality and violence. Crumb is best known for several counter-culture characters, such as Mr. Natural, Fritz The Cat, and the iconic Keep On Truckin' comic panel, which was ubiquitous in the 70s, appearing on t-shirts, belt-buckles and posters.

R. Crumb classics

My introduction to both Janis Joplin and the work of R. Crumb came in the late 70s. At the age of 13, I began purchasing National Lampoon magazines and underground comics while starting to pay attention to more mature film releases. As a pre-teen, I was interested only in mainstream comics and blockbuster flicks (e.g. Jaws, Star Wars), although I did buy the occasional edgy MAD Magazine or Wacky Pack from the local convenience store.

Wacky Packs (a staple among 70s Tweens)

The movie The Rose, starring Bette Midler, was released in 1979 and it was the first time I heard the name Janis Joplin. The movie was a popular topic of discussion in my high school cafeteria, particularly among the decidedly cool seniors.

Originally, the movie was to be called Pearl and was written as a biopic about Joplin, but the screenplay was revised after Joplin's family declined the right to use her name. Nevertheless, the plot was still loosely based on Joplin's meteoric rise and ultimate self-destructive struggles with fame.

Joplin was found dead in a hotel room on October 4, 1970, from a heroin overdose. She was 27.

Despite the passing years, she remains a legendary figure among rock performers. Her distinctive and powerful mezzo-soprano voice was rivaled only by her electrifying performances and her volcanic stage presence. In the Janis Joplin: Biography, she was described as throwing herself "into every syllable...testifying from the very core of her being." (website)

I was five when she died, so I didn't have the chance to see her perform in her prime, only on film. However, in one of those other-worldly dreams that you feel actually happened, I had my Joplin moment.

Joplin in concert (1969)

In the summer of 2005, my wife and I were in New York City. We had heard about a weekly event called "Rock and Roll Karaoke" that was held on Monday nights at an unassuming bar called Arlene's Grocery, located in the hip Lower East Side. At the show, members of the audience signed up to join a band on stage and perform one of hundreds of songs listed in a large book at the bar.

Arlene's Grocery - Lower East Side Manhattan

My wife had once worked at a karaoke bar, but this was like nothing we had experienced before. Live Karaoke, with a band to accompany the performer rather than the traditional pre-recorded instrumental soundtrack, is far more common now, but was a revolutionary concept nearly 17 years ago.

Because it was a Monday night when many Broadway theatres are "dark" , this was not going to be a typical tone-deaf karaoke fling. The wanna-be headliners were no pretenders, but "ringers" (veteran stage performers), and this was going to be a show to remember.

A shot I took at Arlene's Grocery that night

One of the first to take the stage was a twenty-something who looked a bit like a Vanilla Ice impersonator, complete with spiked blonde pompadour. When he launched into a strong performance of the vocally challenging Guns N' Rose's classic Sweet Child O' Mine, the game was on. (I even have a clip I recorded from that performance here)

Midway through the evening, an unassuming young woman took the stage and the band began to play Piece Of My Heart from this week's record, Cheap Thrills. This soulful love song is a Joplin classic and there is no way to perform it only part way. This heart-wrenchingly powerful bluesy number demands a full-throated commitment and, on that hot August night in New York City, this singer delivered.

It was one of those riveting, goosebump-inducing, live performances that elicited raised eyebrows from the visibly impressed backing band. Though no strangers to exceptional karaoke performers, the on-stage musicians made it clear that, "this one was in a league of her own."

I like to think that in a roundabout way my dream of seeing Janis Joplin perform in real time was channeled through another singer on that memorable occasion in a dreary-looking, but hipster-cool bar in the Big Apple. So, if you ask me if I've seen Janis perform...I might say "Yes."

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