I read this this morning;
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Guitarist James Gurley, Formerly Of 60's San Francisco Acid Rockers Big Brother And The Holding Company Passes Away Aged 69
James Gurley, former guitarist of Big Brother and the Holding Company, the psychedelic blues acid rock band from San Francisco who assisted Janis Joplin on her meteoric rise to fame in the late 60's has passed away from a heart attack December 20th at the age of 69. He was two days shy of his 70th birthday.
Born in Detroit, Michigan on December 22, 1939, Gurley took up the guitar at the age of nineteen, practicing long hours listening to blues, particularly fond of bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins. In 1962, he moved to San Francisco and became part of the coffee-house circuit, playing in the folk and country blues tradition.
In the summer of 1965, legendary promoter Chet Helms brought James to 1090 Page Street to meet Peter Albin and Sam Andrew of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and shortly thereafter, he joined the band. In June of 1966, Joplin joined the band, and shortly thereafter she and Gurley began a short lived affair.
At the end of 1966, Big Brother signed a contract with Mainstream Records, with their debut album, 'Big Brother & the Holding Company' released the following year. Initially not garnering much national attention, following the band's historic performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, it finally debuted on Billboard's album charts in September, peaking at #43.
Signing with Columbia Records in November 1967, the resulting album 'Cheap Thrills' , released in the summer of 1968, one year after their debut album reached number one on the Billboard charts in its eighth week in October. It held the number one spot for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. Considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco, it was ranked number 338 in Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums of all time.
At the end of the summer of 1968, just after appearing at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival in San Francisco, Joplin announced that she was leaving Big Brother in the fall of that year. After breaking up, the band got back together in the fall of 1969, with Kathi McDonald and Nick Gravenites on lead vocals, albeit with Gurley on bass, not guitar. After releasing two more studio albums the band called it a day in 1972.
Reuniting in 1987, Gurley left the band in 1996 due to not supporting his colleagues idea to hire a female singer to replace Joplin, and to concentrate on solo projects. An album 'Pipe Dreams' was released in January 2000.
Former BBHC bandmate Sam Andrew posted the following remembrance on line this afternoon:
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James Gurley died of a heart attack today 20 December 2009 in a hospital in Palm Springs, California.
I wrote about him just this last week that at The Maritime Hall in San Francisco, sixteen years ago, he played such great solos at our benefit for Chet Helms. He was on fire that night, and we have that on video tape so... there will be no doubt about it. When conditions were right, the man could really play.
James was the most unusual person I ever met, a pioneer, a real original, a very funny man and truly alive with an energy that not many people have. When James was around, life seemed to be magnified. Everything was more interesting, had more meaning, was more vital. He kept that energy right up to now, really. He and I did a set of interviews together in San Diego at the beginning of last summer and he was as wry and spry as ever.
When Big Brother lived at our Lagunitas house a few miles from where I am sitting, we all had our first Christmas together, was it 1967? We both had birthdays right around this time and James handed me a small present and growled, “Let’s put the X back in X-mas.” It was a bah, humbug moment that I know he would truly appreciate now. James has gone to the great X two days shy of his birthday, and two days after mine.
For me and for many people, James was the real 1960s, the real exemplar of that counterculture, the forerunner. Peter Albin, Chet Helms, and I founded Big Brother and the Holding Company, but James was the spirit and the essence of the band in its early days. He showed us the way as a Zen master would show the way, without sermons, without lectures, with as little talk but with as much humor as possible.
When I met James in 1965, he was going to die in two weeks. Of pleurisy. It was always something. James was such a hypochondriac that I was sure he was going to outlive all of us. Now he is gone.
Goodbye, old friend. Ave atque Vale.
Sam Andrew
These comments were posted by Barry Melton, former lead guitarist for Country Joe and the Fish:
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Today is another sad day in what's turned out to be a pretty devastating year. I learned just about an hour ago of the death of James Gurley this afternoon. James was, of course, the lead guitarist with Big Brother and the Holding Company. I believe James Gurley was the Yuri Gagarin of rock & roll -- the first man ...in space! There was only handful of us that created our mini-genre of psychedelic guitar, and James was the avitar who blazed the path for the rest of us. Go in peace, James...
December 20, 2009 10:57 PM
