The record
At a glance
- Artist
- Big Brother and the Holding Company
- Released
- August 1971
- Album
- Fourth studio album
- Original tracks
- Ten
- Label
- Columbia C 30738
- Producers
- Roscoe Segel and Roy Segal
Why it matters
A more integrated second chapter for the rebuilt band
How Hard It Is demonstrates that the re-formed Big Brother was developing rather than merely repeating the formula of Be a Brother. The same instrumental center returns, but Mike Finnigan's keyboards and vocals become more integrated across the programme. Sam Andrew remains guitarist, singer and principal writer, while Dave Getz moves beyond drums into percussion, marimba, piano and composition. James Gurley continues primarily on bass, Peter Albin crosses guitar and bass roles and David Schallock supplies lead guitar and the final composition.
The record ranges from hard rock and soul-inflected singing to boogaloo rhythm, Hawaiian escape imagery and a closing instrumental joke about harmony. Buried Alive in the Blues connects the band to Nick Gravenites and Joplin's Pearl repertoire without pretending the two recordings are interchangeable. Its number 157 chart peak was modest, but the album documents a coherent working group capable of making a second post-breakthrough statement. It closes Big Brother's initial Columbia studio run before the 1972 breakup, while later reunions mean it should not be mislabeled as the band's final studio album for all time.
San Francisco, 1971
The Be a Brother lineup returns to one San Francisco studio
Be a Brother had re-established Andrew, Albin, Gurley and Getz with Schallock, Gravenites, McDonald and a wider guest circle. The follow-up retained the core instrumental lineup and used Finnigan as a recurring keyboardist and singer. Recording was concentrated at Columbia Recording Studios in San Francisco rather than spread across the multiple facilities credited on the preceding album. Roscoe Segel and Roy Segal produced; the historical credits use both surname spellings in those distinct forms.
Roy Segal engineered, with David Brown, George Engfer, George Horn and Mike Larner credited as recordists. The programme contains nine group-connected or collaborator originals and one outside song by Ray Rivera, Gale Garnett and Walter Hirsch. Columbia issued How Hard It Is as C 30738 in August 1971. The group continued into 1972 before internal and practical pressures ended this phase of the band.
Band and guest circle
Core five, organ voice and carefully assigned guests
Andrew's guitar and voice provide continuity across all ten tracks, but his co-writes with Getz, Segel, Nudelman and Albin prevent one writing method from dominating. Getz is the album's quiet expansion engine: title-track co-writer, House on Fire composer and source of tuned percussion and piano as well as drums. Albin moves between guitar-family instruments and bass, helping Shine On reach the album's longest form without relying on a single texture. Gurley's bass role is a meaningful reversal from the twin-guitar identity of Cheap Thrills and should not be casually reassigned to lead guitar.
Schallock's lead playing appears on selected pieces, and his closing composition gives him the final word as writer. Finnigan's organ, piano and vocals broaden several songs, but he remains an identified additional musician rather than replacing the five-person instrumental core. McDonald's vocal role is specifically tied to Black Widow Spider; Gravenites' return is specifically tied to Buried Alive in the Blues. The bounded guest credits keep How Hard It Is from being described either as a simple quintet performance or as a faceless studio assembly.
Broad American rock
Hard rock widens through soul, boogaloo and unusual percussion
How Hard It Is opens with layered voice, organ and guitar, turning difficulty into an active groove rather than a slow lament. You've Been Talkin' 'Bout Me, Baby uses an outside composition and soul-inflected vocal-keyboard interplay for direct confrontation. House on Fire combines Getz's writing with urgent rhythmic motion and a title that makes domestic danger immediate. Black Widow Spider concentrates fuzz, vocal exchange and predatory imagery into the side's hardest compact rocker.
Last Band on Side One names both sequence position and musical self-awareness, ending the side with a short comic sign-off. Nu Boogaloo Jam restarts through syncopation and an instrumental-social dance vocabulary distinct from the first side's pressure songs. Maui uses island distance as relief, brightening the arrangement without erasing the record's strain.
Shine On expands beyond five minutes through organ, guitar and a repeated encouragement that functions as endurance. Buried Alive in the Blues gives Gravenites' song a voiced Big Brother setting after its instrumental appearance on Pearl. Promise Her Anything but Give Her Arpeggio closes with Schallock's wordplay, making a musical figure both subject and structural joke.
Track guide
Ten tracks with the side break named inside the programme
How Hard It Is
Getz and Andrew make difficulty the opening proposition, but the performance moves rather than collapses. Guitar, organ and multiple vocal colors turn recognition into momentum; the title's plain words establish a record concerned with work, survival and musical response.
You've Been Talkin' 'Bout Me, Baby
Ray Rivera, Gale Garnett and Walter Hirsch supply the album's sole outside composition. Its direct accusation shifts the subject from internal struggle to public speech, while Finnigan-associated keyboard and vocal energy give confrontation a soul-rock frame.
House on Fire
Getz and Louis Rappaport turn danger into a scene too urgent for abstraction. Drums press forward beneath sharp guitar responses; the house image makes crisis communal because everyone inside must recognize it before escape is possible.
Black Widow Spider
Andrew's compact song uses predatory attraction as its central image. McDonald's bounded vocal contribution intensifies the exchange, while fuzz guitar and hard accents keep desire and warning inseparable rather than casting the figure as decorative danger.
Last Band on Side One
Roscoe Segel and Andrew acknowledge the physical LP inside the song title. The short sign-off releases pressure through self-awareness, ending side one exactly where it says it will and making the listener's turn of the record part of the joke.
Nu Boogaloo Jam
Dan Nudelman and Andrew open side two with a groove-centered reset. Syncopation and ensemble exchange matter more than story; the new boogaloo claim signals adaptation, while jam describes a controlled group conversation rather than unlimited duration.
Maui
Segel and Andrew replace urban crisis with imagined distance. A brighter arrangement makes the island a temporary horizon, but the compact form prevents escape from becoming a complete solution to the hardship named at the album's start.
Shine On
Getz, Albin and Andrew build the longest piece around repeated encouragement. Organ and guitars widen the form gradually, allowing shine to mean continued presence rather than effortless optimism. The group-writing credit matches its collective endurance.
Buried Alive in the Blues
Gravenites' song receives a full vocal treatment after the Full Tilt Boogie Band recorded it instrumentally for Pearl. Big Brother approaches the image through weight and testimony; the historical connection deepens the performance but does not turn it into a Joplin recording.
Promise Her Anything but Give Her Arpeggio
Schallock's composition closes the LP with a pun on romantic excess and musical construction. The arrangement lets patterned notes carry the joke, ending a record about hardship through craft, play and an unmistakably instrumental idea.
Pressure and continuation
Difficulty, talk, danger, persistence and musical self-awareness
How Hard It Is has no continuous plot, yet its titles form a progression from admitted difficulty through danger, escape, endurance and musical play. The title track states hardship directly, while You've Been Talkin' 'Bout Me moves pressure into reputation and accusation. House on Fire makes crisis architectural and immediate; Black Widow Spider makes it attractive and interpersonal. Last Band on Side One interrupts those dangers by admitting that the listener is hearing a constructed lp sequence.
Nu Boogaloo Jam makes social rhythm the second side's first answer to strain. Maui imagines geographical release, but Shine On replaces escape with persistence inside present circumstances. Buried Alive in the Blues gives hardship its deepest genre and bodily metaphor. The final arpeggio joke does not solve the album's problems; it ends by valuing musical invention as a way to continue working through them.
Columbia 30738
Columbia 30738 and a title that admits the struggle
The original US Columbia catalogue number is C 30738. Dennis Nolan created the artwork, returning a designer connected to the group's first Mainstream package. The title How Hard It Is makes difficulty public without specifying one cause, allowing personal, band and industry meanings to coexist.
Five tracks occupy each side, and Last Band on Side One explicitly marks the original vinyl boundary. Promise Her Anything but Give Her Arpeggio is the correct final title; some databases have introduced a mistaken Here for Her. Later two-album editions may place this programme directly after Be a Brother, but its title track remains a new album opening rather than track eleven of one continuous work.
The fourth album
August 1971: number 157 in a three-week chart run
How Hard It Is appeared in August 1971 as Big Brother and the Holding Company's fourth studio album. It reached number 157 on Billboard's album chart and remained there for three weeks. The result was lower than Be a Brother's number 134 peak and far removed from the Joplin-era commercial scale.
Reviews were divided over the material, yet some recognized that the band had developed an identity independent of its former singer. The broader role for Finnigan and the varied writing partnerships distinguish the record from a simple continuation assembled from leftovers. No further Columbia studio album followed before the group disbanded in 1972.
Before the first breakup
The last Columbia studio chapter before the 1972 split
The album is the fullest studio account of the Andrew-Albin-Gurley-Getz-Schallock instrumental lineup. Getz's writing and multi-instrumental roles demonstrate how much the later band depended on contributions beyond its most visible guitarists and singers. Finnigan's organ and voice give several tracks a soul-rock center that separates them from Cheap Thrills and from Be a Brother's looser guest mosaic. Buried Alive in the Blues creates a respectful catalogue bridge to Pearl while remaining a distinct Big Brother performance.
The sequence's self-referential side ending and arpeggio finale reveal humor as a compositional tool, not merely lyrical relief. Its chart decline helps explain the end of the first Columbia era but should not be converted into a claim that the musicians stopped developing. Later reunions and studio work mean the album is best called the final studio statement before the 1972 breakup, not the band's final album forever. Its legacy is a hard-working group broadening American rock forms at the exact moment its commercial room was narrowing.
Original programme
Preserve the five/five LP and the correct final title
The original album contains ten tracks. Last Band on Side One closes side one. Promise Her Anything but Give Her Arpeggio is the original ending. Her is correct in the final title, not Here.
McDonald's documented role is bounded to Black Widow Spider. Gravenites returns for Buried Alive in the Blues. Finnigan appears on selected tracks rather than the entire album. Later reunions prevent a final-studio-album-ever description.
A listening path
Use the named side break, then follow groove into arpeggio
- Begin with admitted difficulty and follow public talk into domestic danger.
- Hear Black Widow Spider concentrate the first side's threat.
- Accept the short fifth track as an instruction to turn the lp.
- Restart with boogaloo rhythm rather than another crisis narrative.
- Use Maui as temporary distance before Shine On's sustained work.
- Compare Buried Alive in the Blues with Pearl only after hearing its place here.
- Let Schallock's arpeggio joke close the Columbia-era sequence.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- How Hard It Is programme and review — AllMusic
- Official ten-track Columbia programme — Apple Music
- Official digital sequence and duration — Amazon Music
- Release-group sequence and final-title variant record — MusicBrainz
- Later-lineup history and Columbia-era boundary — Big Brother and the Holding Company
- Original C 30738 credits and Billboard release record — Billboard and original-LP documentation
- Retrospective critical record — Robert Christgau