The Story Behind Robert Crumb’s Cover Art for Big Brother and the Holding Company’s Album “Cheap Thrills” (1968)

Cheap Thrills is the second studio album by Big Brother and the Holding Company, released on August 12, 1968, by Columbia Records. Cheap Thrills was the band’s final album with lead singer Janis Joplin before she left to begin a solo career.

The cover was drawn by underground cartoonist Robert Crumb after the band’s original cover idea, a photo of the group naked in bed together, was vetoed by Columbia Records. Crumb had originally intended his art for the LP back cover, with a portrait of Janis Joplin to grace the front. But Joplin—an avid fan of underground comics, especially the work of Crumb—so loved the Cheap Thrills illustration that she demanded Columbia place it on the front cover. It is number nine on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 greatest album covers. Crumb later authorized the sale of prints of the cover, some of which he signed before sale.

The front cover for the album Cheap Thrills by Big Brother & the Holding Company / Janis Joplin.

Crumb was not the first choice for Big Brother and the Holding Company’s album cover. The band, which rose to meteoric success immediately after their milestone performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in the summer of 1967, was quickly signed to Columbia Records who wanted an album quick to cash in on the emerging flower power market. The original title for the band’s first album for Columbia was Sex, Dope and Cheap Thrills, a fair summary of the band’s credo. That, of course, did not fly with the suits at Columbia who nixed the blunt Sex and Dope and left only the vague Cheap Thrills. When it came time for the album cover, the band’s idea was to go with an expected band photo, with a minor twist of taking the photo in their birthday suits. The result proved unsatisfactory, and another no-no for the suits who make the decisions.

The idea of going with a standard band photograph was not abandoned yet, as drummer Dave Getz recalled: “Then Bob Cato, CBS’s art director, thought we should do a photo session with Richard Avedon, perhaps the most famous fashion photographer in the world. Avedon did his ‘Avedon thing’ on us; the fan blowing our hair, the strobe lights flashing, white background, random rearrangement of our faces. It was another huge and costly miss. The photos were good but more about Avedon than us.”

What’s a band to do now? Enter Crumb the Sex, Dope and Cheap Thrills universe. Drummer Dave Getz recalls the moment the idea of asking Crumb to do the cover came up: “We had a huge loft/warehouse in SF where we rehearsed and I lived. I remember us all sitting around and talking ideas for the cover and I said ‘How about asking R.Crumb?’  Janis, James (Gurley, guitar player) and I were all big fans of his work, we loved his cartoons which were appearing in the SF underground newspapers and Zap Comics. But outside of SF not that many people knew of his genius.”

Robert Crumb in 1969

Through a mutual friend they got Crumb’s number and Janis called him. Crumb remembered the moment he was asked to create the cover: “Janis asked me to do an album cover. I liked Janis OK and I did her cover. I took speed and did an all-nighter. The front cover I designed wasn’t used at all. They used the back cover for the front. I got paid $600. The album cover impressed the hell out of girls much more so than the comics. I got a lot of mileage out of that over the years!”

Getz added: “The next weekend Crumb came to our show at The Carousel Ballroom, sat on the floor in our backstage dressing room and observed. He really wasn’t into our music but it didn’t matter. It was maybe one or two days later Crumb called Janis to come and pick up what he’d done.”

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Romantic Photos of Gilbert Roland and Constance Bennett During the Filming of ‘After Tonight’ (1933)

After Tonight is a 1933 American pre-Code World War I spy film directed by George Archainbaud and starring Constance Bennett and Gilbert Roland. The studio considered firing Bennett after the film lost $100,000 at the box office.

Mordaunt Hall was unimpressed with the film, writing in The New York Times that it “taxes one’s credulity” and that Roland's performance was “hardly satisfactory”, though he thought “Miss Bennett does her work as well as it is possible in the circumstances.”

These romantic photos captured portraits of Gilbert Roland and Constance Bennett during the filming of After Tonight in 1933.

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Amazing Cover Photos of Motion Picture Classic Magazine in the Early 20th Century

Motion Picture Classic was an American movie fan magazine published in the early 20th century. It began publishing in 1915, and shifted names a few times in the 1920s, finally becoming Movie Classic in 1931. No active issue copyright renewals have been found under any of this magazine’s names.

Publication ceased in 1937. Here below is a collection of amazing photos that shows covers of the Motion Picture Classic from between the 1910s and 1930s.

June Caprice, Motion Picture Classic, September 1916

Anita Booth, Motion Picture Classic, September 1920

Bebe Daniels, Motion Picture Classic, December 1920

Clarine Seymour, Motion Picture Classic, March 1920

Constance Binney, Motion Picture Classic, July 1920

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21 Adorable Photos of Sharon Tate as a Child in the 1940s and 1950s

“Sharon had a magnificent life. Born into a family who loved her very much, she had a wonderful childhood. She traveled the world. She became a film star who many say was the most beautiful of her generation. She was talented. She met and married the man of her dreams. She experienced impending motherhood. She achieved so much in such a brief time, made a significant impact, and continues to fascinate and delight the world. It is important that her life be celebrated for these reasons.” — Debra Tate, Sharon’s younger sister.

Sharon Marie Tate was born on January 24, 1943, in Dallas, Texas, the eldest of three daughters to Colonel Paul James Tate, a United States Army intelligence officer, and his wife, Doris Gwendolyn. At six months of age, Tate won the “Miss Tiny Tot of Dallas Pageant,” but her parents had no show business ambitions for their daughter. Paul Tate was promoted and transferred several times.

By the age of 16, Tate had lived in six cities and reportedly found it difficult to maintain friendships. Her family described her as shy and lacking in self-confidence. As an adult, Tate commented that people would misinterpret her shyness as aloofness until they knew her better.

Tate attended South Shaver Elementary in Pasadena, Texas through 1955, Chief Joseph Junior High School (now middle school) from September 1955 to June 1958, and Columbia High School in Richland, Washington, from September 1958 to October 1959. In El Paso, Texas, she attended Irvin High School from late fall 1959 to April 1960 and then Vicenza American High School in Vicenza, Italy, from April 1960 to graduation in June 1961.

Sharon Tate’s childhood laid the foundation for her later career in Hollywood, where she became an iconic actress and model of the 1960s, tragically cut short by her untimely death in 1969. Below is a collection of 21 childhood photos of Sharon Tate from the 1940s and early 1950s:

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30 Gorgeous Photos of Ina Claire in the 1920s and ’30s

Born 1893 in Washington, D.C., American stage and film actress Ina Claire made her professional stage debut in 1907 in Elmira, New York. She performed on Broadway in the musicals Jumping Jupiter, The Quaker Girl (both 1911), and Lady Luxury (1914-1915). She later starred on Broadway in plays by some of the leading comic dramatists of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.

Claire later became identified with the high comedies of S. N. Behrman, and created the female leads in three of his plays: Biography (1934), End of Summer (1936), and The Talley Method (1941). Critic J. Brooks Atkinson praised Claire for her, “refulgent comic intelligence”.

Claire made her film debut in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Wild Goose Chase (1915). She is best remembered today for her role as the Grand Duchess Swana in the romantic comedy Ninotchka (1939), directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo.

Claire died in 1985, in San Francisco, California, following a heart attack. She was 91 years old. Take a look at these gorgeous photos to see portraits of young Ina Claire in the 1920s and 1930s.

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Linda Eastman as a Vermont College Student in 1961

“To beguile with talk the slow moving hours…” So wrote the lovely young woman named Linda Louise Eastman in 1961. The words appear with Linda’s graduation photograph in the 1961 edition of the Promethean, Vermont College’s yearbook.

Linda Eastman came to Vermont College in 1959 from Scarsdale High School in suburban New York. At that time Vermont College was a junior college (2-year program) and we know Linda received her Associate of Arts degree in 1961, then transferred to the University of Arizona. While in Montpelier, Linda resided in Howland Hall (which still stands) with about 20 other young women. Linda was said to be a “happy spirit,” and belonged to the modern dance club and the Women’s Athletic Association. She remained at Vermont College two years.

Eight years later, in March of 1969, Linda Eastman married Beatles singer/songwriter Paul McCartney.

Stunning Fashion Designs by Ken Scott in the 1960s and Early ’70s

Born in 1918 in Indiana, American fashion designer Ken Scott showed a strong passion for painting at a young age, and this led him to study in New York. These were intense and fertile years of success and experimentation. Following his free and curious spirit, he moved to Europe in 1946. First to Paris and the French Riviera, where Scott led a bohemian life, and arriving in Milan in 1955. And it was here that Scott founded the Falconetto brand.

Starting from textiles, the artist revolutionized the style of that time. Bright and sunny colors, unpredictable combinations, and joyful flowers became his “trademark”. Since 1962, he signed collections of clothes and accessories making him internationally renowned.

Scott’s rise was unstoppable, his production varied, and his research and method were avant-garde. His unbridled imagination and his inherent irony was accompanied by extraordinary technical skills and his most diverse creations were undeniably immortal.

These stunning photos captured portraits of classic beauties wearing fashion designs by Ken Scott in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Floral print dress by Ken Scott of Falconetto, photo by Helmut Newton, Vogue, May 1, 1963

Virna Lisi, in a paisley set by Ken Scott, photo by Leombruno-Bodi, Vogue, January 1, 1964

Veruschka at a villa south of Rome, a yellow caftan and a red and yellow head scarf by Ken Scott, photo by Henry Clarke, Vogue, November 1965

Veruschka in a bikini and matching fringed shawl in a sunny yellow, black and brown paisley pattern, by Ken Scott, photo by Henry Clarke, Vogue, November 1965

Veruschka in a pajama set by Ken Scott, photo by Henry Clarke, Vogue, June 1, 1965

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