Sony Music
It’s been too racy for 50 years, but now Big Brother & the Holding Company‘s breakout album is being re-released under its intended name: Sex, Dope, and Cheap Thrills.
And it’s not just the title that’s bigger: There are 25 previously-unreleased studio outtakes, and only five sonic survivors from the original Cheap Thrills.
The album was first released in 1968, just after lead singer Janis Joplin‘s jaw-dropping appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival, and the one-two punch launched the singer and her band to worldwide stardom.
In the liner notes for the Sex, Dope reissue, Jefferson Airplane‘s Grace Slick explains, “This album, because of its worldwide success, made it possible for everybody to hear the phenomenon that was previously limited to the San Francisco Bay Area.”
Slick describes hearing Janis for the first time as “spontaneous explosions of every emotion–no holds barred…. Janis had no trouble sliding from the apron-clad fifties into the no-bra sixties.”
Sex, Dope, & Cheap Thrills will be sold as a 30-track double CD set, and a 16-track gatefold vinyl album. It hits stores and digital outlets on November 30, and preorders are being taken now at JanisJoplin.com
Here’s the track listing for the two-CD edition:
Disc One
- “Combination Of The Two (Take 3)”
- “I Need A Man To Love (Take 4)”
- “Summertime (Take 2)” *
- “Piece Of My Heart (Take 6)”
- “Harry (Take 10)”
- “Turtle Blues (Take 4)”
- “Oh, Sweet Mary”
- “Ball And Chain (live, The Winterland Ballroom, April 12, 1968)”
- “Roadblock (Take 1)” *
- “Catch Me Daddy (Take 1)”
- “It’s A Deal (Take 1)” *
- “Easy Once You Know How (Take 1)” *
- “How Many Times Blues Jam”
- “Farewell Song (Take 7)”
Disc Two
- “Flower In The Sun (Take 3)”
- “Oh Sweet Mary”
- “Summertime (Take 1)”
- “Piece of My Heart (Take 4)”
- “Catch Me Daddy (Take 9)”
- “Catch Me Daddy (Take 10)”
- “I Need A Man To Love (Take 3)”
- “Harry (Take 9)”
- “Farewell Song (Take 4)”
- “Misery’n (Takes 2 & 3)”
- “Misery’n (Take 4)”
- “Magic Of Love (Take 1)” *
- “Turtle Blues (Take 9)”
- “Turtle Blues (last verse Takes 1-3)”
- “Piece Of My Heart (Take 3)”
- “Farewell Song (Take 5)”
And here’s the track listing for Sex, Dope & Cheap Thrills 2-LP edition
LP 1
Side A
- “Combination of The Two (Demo)”
- “I Need A Man To Love (Take 3)”
- “Summertime (Take 2)” *
- “Piece Of My Heart (Take 6)”
Side B
- “Harry (Take 10)”
- “Turtle Blues (Take 4)”
- “Oh, Sweet Mary”
- “Ball And Chain” (live, The Winterland Ballroom, April 12, 1968)
LP 2
Side C
- “Roadblock (Take 1)” *
- “Magic Of Love (Take 1)” *
- “Oh Sweet Mary”
- “Flower In The Sun (Take 3)”
Side D
- “Catch Me Daddy (Take 1)”
- “Turtle Blues (Take 9)”
- “How Many Times Blues Jam”
- “Farewell Song (Take 5)”
All tracks previously unreleased except*
