writings by DAVE GETZ

There's a story that's been going around for about 50 years that we wanted to call our album Sex Dope and Cheap Thrills. Well, it's true.  Of course the 'suits',  at CBS records, headed by Clive Davis wouldn't go for it; we kind of knew there was no chance of getting something that outrageous past those guys. though in many ways it would have been an accurate summation of our lives at the time. Sex and dope? For sure.

writings by SAM ANDREW

I used to go on long walks through the city where every block seemed like a different chapter in a good book. One day I was walking down Page Street and speculating as to what family might have built a particularly fine Victorian house on the corner, when I heard someone playing the guitar on one of the upper floors. I walked boldly into the mansion which had seen better days and climbed the stairs to find a man playing in a large sunny room.

writings by DAVE GETZ

Cheap Thrills seems to have stood the test of time. It might be because it is arguably Janis Joplin's - a great artist - greatest work. It is certainly the greatest and closest representation of what Big Brother and the Holding Company was as a band; and I would add to that argument that Big Brother/Janis Co as a band and as a SOUND was the embodiment of the San Francisco, psychedelic, Counter-culture of the 1960s.