Dope, Sex, And Cheap Thrills

Original released on LP Columbia KCS 9700

(US 1968, August 12)

 «What we're trying to do in our music is just get back to old-time havin' a good time, jumpin', gettin' stoned.» Janis Joplin, 1968

“DOPE, SEX, AND CHEAP THRILLS”, that’s what Big Brother & The Holding Company wanted to call this album. Somewhere along the way to their skyrocketing fame in the 1960s they picked that phrase as their unofficial motto. Five words that captured, with characteristic humor, the San Francisco rock-and-roll ethic of the City by the Bay’s most off-the-wall band. Janis was all for it. Clive Davis, then president of Columbia Records, huddled with his advisers and nixed it. No way we’re going to approve dope and sex on our album covers, came the edict from on high. Big Brother was adamant. When Janis was adamant about something, she could reduce men in suits to quivering yes-men. Gingerly, with misgivings, the powers at Columbia approved "Cheap Thrills". The album was released in August 1968. It sold a million copies, and it had legs. Three months after its release, "Cheap Thrills" topped out at Nº 1 on Billboard’s Top 100 albums chart.

"Cheap Thrills", the major-label debut of Janis Joplin, was one of the most eagerly anticipated, and one of the most successful, albums of 1968. Joplin and Big Brother had earned extensive press notice ever since they played the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, but their only recorded work was a poorly produced, self-titled Mainstream album, and they spent a year getting out of their contract with Mainstream in order to sign with Columbia while demand built. Joplin, with her ear- (and vocal cord) - shredding voice, was the obvious standout. Nobody had ever heard singing as emotional, as desperate, as determined, as loud as Joplin's, and "Cheap Thrills" was her greatest moment. Big Brother's backup, typical of the guitar-dominated sound of San Francisco psychedelia, made up in enthusiasm what it lacked in precision. But everybody knew who the real star was, and Joplin played her last gig with Big Brother while the album was still on top of the charts. Neither she nor the band would ever equal it. Heard today, "Cheap Thrills" is a musical time capsule and remains a showcase for one of rock's most distinctive singers. (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)

"Cheap Thrills"' critical reputation rests on the theatrical grandeur of Janis Joplin's raw, visceral vocals. Blending traditions and influences through a hippy Haight haze, Joplin's perfomances here transcended contemporary discussions about whether a white Texan female could sing the blues. If you can wring more emotion out of these songs, it ain't gonna happen on this planet. There are plentiful reminders of late-Sixties Haight-Ashbury. Its strengths can be seen in the iconic strip-cartoon cover art by Robert Crumb, which blew the photo of Joplin onto the back cover, and also in the exuberance with which the band adopt a range of black music styles - notably doo-woop, soul, and blues. The limitations of genre are also clear: the sometimes leaden quality of the band's solos and rhythms restrain them from taking off with Joplin; it's her pleading, ecstatic, mighty voice that stays with you. Given this fact, it is not surprising that she quit Big Brother (along with guitarist Sam Andrew) while the album still topped the charts - sadly, she never found another musical context that really nurtured her. (Max Reinhardt in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die")

The Singing Detective

Original released on CD BBC CD 608

(UK, 1987)

Highly original TV serial produced equally unexpected and eccentric soundtrack that collects ancient pre-WW2 hits and this music can easily be enjoyed and listened even on it's own. Bing Crosby, The Ink Spots, The Mills Brothers and early Ella Fitzgerald are just some of the names collected here and it all suits me fine, as I am familiar with this music. Famous cartoon artist Robert Crumb went several steps further and later released his own collection of similar recordings titled "That's What I Call Sweet Music" with now-forgoten artist of 1920s and 1930s so if you like music used for "The Singing Detective" you might like that compilation even more as it covers less mainstream gems. For some reason I always had a soft spot for these kind of old recordings and find them perfectly easy listening and soothing,in spite of old-fashioned recording techniques and this fact might actually give them magic charm missing from some newer music. No tricks,no computer gimmicks, just real musician playing live music in the studio. Besides,where else you can find original recordings by  Al Bowlly or Lale Anderson these days? Favorite (so far): "Dem Dry Bones" by joyous Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians, whoever they might have been. It is a rousing gospel song that would fit perfectly in some early Disney movie sung by band of animated characters. (in RateYourMusic)

"White Rabbit" By THE JEFFERSON AIRPLANE

R.I.P. MARTY BALIN 

(30 January 1942, US Cincinnati > 27 September 2018, US Tampa)

BLIND FAITH

Original released on LP Polydor 583059

(UK 1969, June 22)

Blind Faith were the band that introduced the world to the notion of a rock "supergroup," a combo featuring several musicians who had already achieved popularity and critical acclaim before joining forces to make music. Blind Faith also unwittingly established one of the most common features of supergroups - most featured enough performers with strong résumés and egos to match that internal conflicts were all but inevitable, and as a consequence they usually fell apart rather quickly. Despite a hit album and a financially successful international concert tour, Blind Faith managed to rise and fall in the space of less than a year, and ultimately proved to be a large but curious footnote in the careers of four giants of British rock, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker, and Rick Grech. Blind Faith were born of discord within two noted British acts of the late '60s. Cream were at the peak of their fame when the band broke up in 1969, in part because guitarist Eric Clapton was uncertain about the group's creative direction, but mainly because bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker found it all but impossible to see eye to eye. Meanwhile, vocalist and keyboard player Steve Winwood had founded Traffic after leaving the Spencer Davis Group to explore an adventurous brand of rootsy but instrumentally adept psychedelia informed by jazz and blues, but after initial success, the group had trouble negotiating egos, as well as working out the balance of songwriting and instrumental work within the band, and in 1969 Traffic shut down. Clapton and Winwood were friends and mutual admirers, and had jammed together on several occasions, so when both found themselves at liberty following the breakup of their respective groups, they investigated the idea of forming a band together. One day, Ginger Baker stopped by while Clapton and Winwood were working out material, and he sat in on drums. Musically, Clapton and Winwood were happy with the way Baker's ambitious percussion melded with their new songs, which explored a more subtle blend of blues and R&B than Cream, and while Clapton was wary of reuniting with Baker so soon after closing the book on Cream, Winwood's enthusiasm won out and Baker joined the band. The group became a quartet with the addition of bassist Rick Grech, who had been playing with the celebrated U.K. band Family.

By May 1969, the quartet was recording an album, with Jimmy Miller serving as producer, and given the massive commercial success of Cream and widespread curiosity about Clapton's next project, the new band - now dubbed Blind Faith by the tongue-in-cheek Clapton - signed a lucrative record deal with Atlantic in the United States as well as Polydor in the U.K. Promoters were clamoring for a tour, and the band scheduled dates in Europe, the United States, and Canada. Blind Faith made their public debut with a show at London's Hyde Park on June 7, 1969; an estimated 100,000 people were on hand for the show, and while most in attendance seemed thrilled with the concert, Clapton in particular was not pleased with how loose and informal Blind Faith sounded on-stage. By the end of the month, Blind Faith had set out on a club tour of Europe, and the smaller shows allowed them better control of their sound and performances, but when they hit America in July, they were booked into large arenas often saddled with dubious acoustics and poor sound systems. Fans eager to see the new band that was the talk of the rock press often battled with police and security as they rushed the stage, and the musicians were displeased with the chaotic atmosphere. It didn't help that Blind Faith had less of an hour's worth of new music to perform before they set out on tour; the band played North America for seven weeks, and by most reports they were rarely happy with their performances or the circumstances of the tour. In August 1969, the Blind Faith album finally hit the streets, and while "Presence of the Lord" and "Can't Find My Way Home" quickly became FM rock staples and the album topped the charts in Britain and the United States, reaction to the project was less enthusiastic than many had expected, and the band received negative press for the LP's cover, which featured a topless schoolgirl playing with a silver airplane model. (The sleeve was rejected in America in favor of a cover featuring a portrait of the band.) After Blind Faith returned home from the North American tour at the end of August, the members went their separate ways. Clapton joined Delaney & Bonnie & Friends on tour as a sideman, and next formed Derek & the Dominos, while Winwood re-formed Traffic, who became more successful than ever. Baker formed his own group, Ginger Baker's Air Force, which would feature Grech in the lineup. Grech also played briefly with Traffic, and in 1976 became involved with another ill-fated supergroup, KGB, featuring Michael Bloomfield, Carmine Appice, and Barry Goldberg. Grech died in 1990. While Clapton and Winwood would occasionally perform together, there has been no effort to revive Blind Faith; presumably their brief run in 1969 was enough for all involved. (Mark Deming in AllMusic)

Blind Faith's first and last album, remains one of the jewels of the Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, and Ginger Baker catalogs, despite the crash-and-burn history of the band itself, which scarcely lasted six months. As much a follow-up to Traffic's self-titled second album as it is to Cream's final output, it merges the soulful blues of the former with the heavy riffing and outsized song lengths of the latter for a very compelling sound unique to this band. Not all of it works - between the virtuoso electric blues of "Had to Cry Today," the acoustic-textured "Can't Find My Way Home," the soaring "Presence of the Lord" (Eric Clapton's one contribution here as a songwriter, and the first great song he ever authored) and "Sea of Joy," the band doesn't do much with the Buddy Holly song "Well All Right"; and Ginger Baker's "Do What You Like" was a little weak to take up 15 minutes of space on an LP that might have been better used for a shorter drum solo and more songs. Unfortunately, the group was never that together as a band and evidently had just the 42 minutes of new music here ready to tour behind. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

DEEP PURPLE - The Third Album (+ 11 Bonus)

Original released on LP Tetragrammaton T 119

(US, June 1969)

This is a record that even those who aren't Deep Purple fans can listen to two or three times in one sitting - but then, this wasn't much like any other album that the group ever issued. Actually, Deep Purple was highly prized for many years by fans of progressive rock, and for good reason. The group was going through a transition - original lead singer Rod Evans and bassist Nick Simper would be voted out of the lineup soon after the album was finished (although they weren't told about it until three months later), organist Jon Lord and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore having perceived limitations in their work in terms of where each wanted to take the band. And between Lord's ever-greater ambitions toward fusing classical and rock and Blackmore's ever-bolder guitar attack, both of which began to coalesce with the session for "Deep Purple" in early 1969, the group managed to create an LP that combined heavy metal's early, raw excitement, intensity, and boldness with progressive rock's complexity and intellectual scope, and virtuosity on both levels. On "The Painter," "Why Didn't Rosemary?," and, especially, "Bird Has Flown," they strike a spellbinding balance between all of those elements, and Evans' work on the latter is one of the landmark vocal performances in progressive rock. "April," a three-part suite with orchestral accompaniment, is overall a match for such similar efforts by the Nice as the "Five Bridges Suite," and gets extra points for crediting its audience with the patience for a relatively long, moody developmental section and for including a serious orchestral interlude that does more than feature a pretty tune, exploiting the timbre of various instruments as well as the characteristics of the full ensemble. Additionally, the band turns in a very successful stripped-down, hard rock version of Donovan's "Lalena," with an organ break that shows Lord's debt to modern jazz as well as classical training. In all, amid all of those elements - the orchestral accompaniment, harpsichord embellishments, and backward organ and drum tracks - "Deep Purple" holds together astonishingly well as a great body of music. This is one of the most bracing progressive rock albums ever, and a successful vision of a musical path that the group might have taken but didn't. Ironically, the group's American label, Tetragrammaton Records, which was rapidly approaching bankruptcy, released this album a lot sooner than EMI did in England, but ran into trouble over the use of the Hieronymus Bosch painting "The Garden of Earthly Delights" on the cover; although it has been on display at the Vatican, the work was wrongly perceived as containing profane images and never stocked as widely in stores as it might've been. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

Remembering Madison County

(VER COMENTÁRIO SOBRE O FILME AQUI)

JOHN LENNON: "Walls And Bridges"

Original released on LP Apple PCTC 253

(UK 1974, September 26)

"Walls and Bridges" is one of my favourite John Lennon albums. Although it's not quite as good as "Plastic Ono Band" or "Imagine" there are still lots of excellent songs here and only two that I don't like very much. The album was written and recorded during John's separation from Yoko Ono, which he referred to as his 'lost weekend', and this is reflected in the lyrics of several of the songs. "Going Down On Love" is a good song, though not as strong as the opening tracks on some of his other albums. "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night", a disco-style upbeat pop song was a duet with Elton John and was Lennon's first #1 hit in the US. "Old Dirt Road" is a gentle and relaxing ballad co-written with Harry Nilsson and features some great imagery and a pretty melody. 

"What You Got", a heavy punk style song, is my least favourite track on the album. I never used to like "Bless You" either, but I'm starting to appreciate it more and more. It's a beautiful, emotional ballad written as a message to Yoko during their time apart. The lyrics alone make this song one of my favourites.  "Scared" is another outstanding track, a wonderfully moody and atmospheric song which tells us what John's state of mind was like at that time. I love his vocals on this song too.  The 'ah bowakawa pousse pousse' chorus of the next song came to John in a dream, and "#9 Dream" is itself magical and dream-like.  An absolutely beautiful song. "Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)" was written for May Pang, John's girlfriend during the lost weekend, and although it is often dismissed as filler, personally I like it. 

"Steel and Glass" is a menacing, venomous ode to the former Beatles manager Allen Klein, deliberately written to be reminiscent of "How Do You Sleep?" from "Imagine".  "Beef Jerky" is a rare instrumental.  It's not bad, but I think it's slightly out of place here. "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)" is a truly fantastic song and one of my top 10 John Lennon songs. I just wish more people loved it as much as I do. One of the most powerful songs he wrote during this period. Finally, "Ya Ya" is really just a little novelty recording added to the end of the album. It was a nice idea for John to include his song Julian playing drums on this track and credit it as 'Starring Julian Lennon on drums and Dad on piano and vocals'. I love "Walls and Bridges".  Take away "What You Got" and "Beef Jerky" and it would have been a perfect album. (in RateYourMusic)

"Walls and Bridges" was recorded during John Lennon's infamous "lost weekend," as he exiled himself in California during a separation from Yoko Ono. Lennon's personal life was scattered, so it isn't surprising that "Walls and Bridges" is a mess itself, containing equal amounts of brilliance and nonsense. Falling between the two extremes was the bouncy Elton John duet "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night," which was Lennon's first solo number one hit. Its bright, sunny surface was replicated throughout the record, particularly on middling rockers like "What You Got" but also on enjoyable pop songs like "Old Dirt Road." However, the best moments on "Walls and Bridges" come when Lennon is more open with his emotions, like on "Going Down on Love," "Steel and Glass," and the beautiful, soaring "# 9 Dream." Even with such fine moments, the album is decidedly uneven, containing too much mediocre material like "Beef Jerky" and "Ya Ya," which are weighed down by weak melodies and heavy over-production. It wasn't a particularly graceful way to enter retirement. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

The Vinyl Photo Collection 5

MANFRED MANN - "Mann Made"

Original released on LP HMV 

CLP 1911 (mono) / CSD 1628 (stereo)

(UK 1965, October 15)

The group's second British album - released just as the original lineup was entering a state of collapse with the impending departure of two key members -shows some of the changes that can happen in a year, as they moved away from Chess Records' brand of blues as their baseline. Instead, they produced a sound that's slightly smoother and a lot more soulful. A handful of originals, mostly by Mike Vickers and Mike Hugg with one Paul Jones-authored number thrown in, are scattered amid covers of songs originated by the Temptations, the Skyliners, and T-Bone Walker. If it isn't as fierce, bold, or daringly ambitious as the Manfreds' debut long-player, "Mann Made" is just as much a virtuoso effort, and a surprisingly cohesive one, considering that it was released immediately after Mike Vickers and Paul Jones announced their respective departures from the band. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

"Love Story" (OST) + 4 Bonus Tracks

Original released on LP Paramount PAS 6002

(US, 1970)

The Vinyl Photo Collection 4

PROCOL HARUM Debut Album

Original released on LP Regal Zonophone LRZ 1001 (mono)

(UK, January 1968)

Procol Harum's delayed UK debut LP was released in several earlier overseas editions, many with differing track listings. The mono American London-Deram issue of August 1967 featured "A White Shade Of Pale", but ommited "Good Captain Clack". The italian release of November 1967 on RCA Records offered not only a vibrant cerise pink cover, restored for this edition, but also the most radical track variance. "AWSOP" and "GCC" were both replaced in favour of an alternate mix of Procol's second single "Homburg". As it was Number 1 in Italy with sales in excess of 300,000. It is featured here in a stereo mix, alongside "Shine On Brightly" sung in Italian (but re-titled "Il Tuo Diamante"), because it too featured on the italian edition - some ten months prior to its global release as the title track of Procol's second album, in November 1968. The album failed to chart in the UK when it was first released. However, when re-issued in the Spring of 1972 (entitled "A Whiter Shade Of Pale") as a Fly Records 'doubleback' released, coupled with their 1969 album "A Salty Dog", it reached a UK chart position of 27.