Keep On

Big Brother and the Holding Company / Be A Brother

3 Word Review: Solid, Groovy, Interesting

So before Janis Joplin was famous in her own right - she was hanging around with BB&THC. Sadly, in this album, she’s relegated to providing only occasional (yet unmistakable) background vocals. She’s not pictured on the album, and is credited as “friend.” This is lame when compared to Janis’ outright awesomeness on later albums, but I might be a little biased there. Overall it’s good rock (if a bit “yelling” in the vocals at times) for a hot summer night, but stick to the later albums where Janis is free to shine.

BB&THC’s comments about this very thing, years later:

“ She was a real intelligent, Janis was, and she always rose to the occasion. She sang the songs. It wasn’t like this moment of revelation like you would like it to be. Like in a movie or something. It wasn’t like, "Oh my God, now we have gone to heaven. We have got Janis Joplin.” I mean she was good but she had to learn how to do that. It took her about a year to really learn how to sing with an electric band.[6]“

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