Big Brother & the Holding Company’s self-titled debut album is best known as Janis Joplin’s first band before she went solo and blew up as “The Queen of Rock” before her untimely passing at the age of 27 years old. The whole thing was recorded in a mere three days following an appearance at the 1966 Monterey Pop Festival which basically was their breakout performance. The band pretty uniformly hated this recording (feeling that it failed to capture their raw, live sound) and lacked the distortion and improvisational energy of their live performances. Despite these concerns, tracks like “Down on Me” eventually found success and Joplin’s powerful double-tracked vocals were universally applauded.
Standout Songs: “Call On Me”, “Down On Me”, “Bye Bye Baby”
