Controversy
In 2007, following the induction of Cheap Thrills to Grammy Hall of Fame, former guitar player James Gurley, described Big Brother as the most maligned band ever, since they never received appreciation for the arrangements they did and all the engineering tricks he came up with. Gurley also believed that Clive Davis told Joplin to leave the band and record her songs with studio musicians, who could play better. In the documentary Nine Hundred Nights, Peter Albin said that the manager Albert Grossman told Joplin to leave Big Brother and form her own band, with studio musicians, in order to spend less money on recording sessions. Sam Andrew said later that Joplin left due to artistic and financial reasons: Joplin usually asked the band to have some keyboard or horns on at least some songs, but they said "No! You are going to change the Big Brother sound!" The band was also doing the same songs a lot, sometimes three times a day, so she started feeling trapped. The band was splitting the money in five equal ways, by leaving she could have all the money and just pay some employees and have a new band.
In 1982, Columbia released the Janis Joplin album Farewell Song. The release displeased Big Brother's living members, since their original instruments were all replaced by studio musicians without consulting the band. James Gurley spoke about that in 1987, before the band's reunion: "It’s just a total bullshit record...some producer's dream at CBS."
Read more about this topic: Big Brother And The Holding Company
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)