good buy, good sound quality
This is a Big Brother album not just Janis with backup. This is a band all working together which shows off Janis' , and everyone else's, power to its best I always felt. The guys sound great. Some of the early hippier songs like Amazing Grace are a real delight.

Way before Monterey...
...Big Brother and the Holding Company was a band which included a very talented, new female vocalist. This collection of recordings documents that wonderful year before they became Janis Joplin's backup band. Disc two's offerings have been given a sound-enhancing make-over that reveals subtle sonic details which previous releases of this material submerged in distortion. Disc two is, however, the star of the show, as most of this stuff has never before seen the light of day, unless on obscure bootlegs, and some of the songs can be heard nowhere else. The quality of the recording is better that that of disc two, and that matches the improved quality of the muscianship(James and Sam engage in some very interesting extended interplay). They're all a bit sloppy at times, but that was part of the San Francisco charm. Assuming this all came from the same show or series of shows, disc one's program was recorded in January 1967 at the Matrix in SF (8 months after disc two's show). Truncated teaser versions of "Amazing Grace" and "High-Heal Sneakers" appear on the album "Farewell Song"(with recording date noted). Here they are presented in full, complete with Peter Albin's acid-rant sermon, distorted guitar wailing from James and Sam, and melodic/rhythmic bits that would later evolve into their song "Catch Me Daddy". What comes out of both discs is just what BBHC was about as a real band. They were about taking musical chances, pushing their own and each other's envelopes, rocking out, and amusing their audience(at times, Peter Albin comes off as a cross between Dick Cavett and Tom Smothers -- witty, articulate, and strangely goofy). Too bad that so much had to change after Montery Pop..ped the magic bubble that encased this band in harmony. If your are a fan, you need this.