Big Brother & the Holding Company Guitarist James Gurley Passes Away
2009/12/24
Big Brother & the Holding Company guitarist James Gurley died of a
heart attack in Palm Springs, CA on December 20. He was 69.
One of the primary architects of the psychedelic sound, Gurley left
his imprint on songs like "Combination of The Two," "Ball and Chain"
and "Piece of My Heart." He appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in
1967 and helped bring Janis Joplin to national fame.
Born James Martin Gurley, the self-taught guitarist grew up in
Detroit, Michigan the son of a stunt car driver. He also spent four
years with the Brothers of the Holy Cross in Detroit studying for the
priesthood. Gurley relocated to San Francisco in the early 1960s and
quickly became a key part of the city's small, underground blues
scene. Through this close-knit community Gurley met Janis Joplin for
the first. He also met San Andrew and Peter Albin and joined their
new group Big Brother & the Holding Company. Gurley and Albin both
remembered hearing Joplin sing and band manager Chet Helms eventually
coaxed Joplinwho had since moved home to Texasback to the Bay Area
to join the band.
Big Brother & the Holding Company was a staple on the San Francisco
circuit for a few years, regularly packing the Fillmore and Avalon
Ballrooms. The group also caught the ears of fans across the country
through a standout performance at 1967's Monterrey Pop Festival and
became an overnight attraction. Big Brother derailed in 1969 after
Joplin left the band to focus on her solo work and, after trying
several replacement singers, the band parted ways in 1972.
The members of Big Brother reunited in 1987 and have toured
nationally over the past few decades. Gurley left the group in 1997
and to focus on his painting and solo work. In addition to some
albums under his own name and a few New Age recordings, Gurley took a
recording he made of Joplin during her coffee house folk years and
added instrumental backing tracks. He also appeared at a 2005 tribute
to Helms that was held in Golden Gate Park. His last recordings were
made a few weeks ago with Muruga Booker while in Michigan.
"James Gurley was the Yuri Gagarin of rock & rollthe first man in
space!," Country Joe and The Fish guitarist Barry "The Fish" Melton
said in a statement. "There was only handful of us that created our
mini-genre of psychedelic guitar, and James was the avatar who blazed
the path for the rest of us."
A public memorial is being planned in the guitarist's honor.
--------
1960s-era psychedelic guitarist James Gurley dies
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2009/12/24/james-gurley-obit.html
December 24, 2009
James Gurley, the lead guitarist for psychedelic band Big Brother and
the Holding Company, which was fronted by Janis Joplin, has died. He was 69.
Gurley died Sunday in a Palm Springs Hospital after having a heart attack.
He is best known for his association with Joplin, who joined the band
1966, shortly after it emerged from the San Francisco music scene.
He left his wife for her, and the band lived communally in a big
house in Lagunitas. Joplin catapulted to stardom with the group and
went on to her brief solo career in the late 1960s.
Gurley, born in Detroit to a stunt car driver father, taught himself
guitar as a teenager and experimented with electric guitar in the early 1960s.
Gurley had been playing in a San Francisco bluegrass group until he
joined Big Brother with Sam Andrews, Peter Albin and David Getz in
1965. Rock promoter Chet Helms brought in Joplin the following year.
Albin recalled Gurley Thursday as one of the most influential
musicians of the psychedelic era who revolutionized the sound that
came from electric instruments.
"Some of the innovations were the result of the fact he came from
kind of a progressive bluegrass school of music where weirdness was
encouraged," Albin said.
Gurley customized electric guitars and amplifiers and developed a
distinctive style involving wild guitar solos on songs such as Piece
of My Heart, Summertime and Ball and Chain. He was one of the few
rock guitarists to use finger picks rather than a flat pick.
Big Brother performed at Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967,
galvanizing the audience with Joplin's rendition of Ball and Chain.
Their Cheap Thrills album, issued just after that concert, is
considered their best.
Gurley stayed with Big Brother as it reformed in the early '70s with
different singers and performed off and on into the 1990s.
He also has been involved in a number of independent projects,
including New Wave band Red Robin and The Worms and solo work such as
his album Pipe Dreams, issued in 2000.
Gurley's first wife, Nancy, died in 1970 of a heroin overdose and he
was charged with her murder, but later acquitted. He is survived by
his second wife, Margaret, and two sons.
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Big Brother and the Holding Company Guitarist James Gurley Dies at 69
http://www.spinner.com/2009/12/22/big-brother-and-the-holding-company-guitarist-james-gurley-dies/
Dec 22nd 2009
by John D. Luerssen
Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist James Gurley died of a
heart attack on Sunday at a Palm Springs, Calif. hospital. Gurley,
69, was a key creative force in the San Francisco-based psychedelic
rock outfit that propelled Janis Joplin to stardom in the late 1960s.
On news of his former bandmate's passing, co-founder Sam Andrew wrote
on Big Brother's official website, "For me and 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 us
the way, without sermons, without lectures, with as little talk but
as much humor as possible."
Born in Detroit, Gurley picked up the guitar when he was 19. Inspired
by the blues, he cited Lightnin' Hopkins as one of his early
influences. At the age of 23, he moved to San Francisco to become a
part of the city's folk scene and by the summer of 1965, he joined
forces with Albin and Andrew.
In June of 1966, Joplin joined the group, which emerged from the same
Bay Area scene that launched the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson
Airplane and the Quicksilver Messenger Service. BBHC released its
eponymous debut album to acclaim in the summer of 1967 and after its
landmark performance at the Monterey Pop Festival, the disc had
modest chart success.
A year later, the group -- by now signed to Columbia Records --
released the psychedelic rock classic 'Cheap Thrills,' which topped
the album chart in October 1968. Despite the enormous hit, 'Piece of
My Heart,' the band's days were numbered, with Joplin quitting the
group for a solo career. While Big Brother reconvened in 1969, Janis
proved irreplaceable and after two additional albums they gave up on
the band in 1972.
In 1987, the group returned to the touring circuit, with Gurley
retiring from the group in 1996. In 2000, he released a solo album
'Pipe Dreams.'
--------
Psychedelic guitarist James Gurley of Big Brother and the Holding
Company dead at 69
December 22, 2009
Robyn Chelsea-Seifert
Psychedelic guitarist James Gurley known for his part in Big Brother
and the Holding Company passed away on December 20th in a Palm
Springs hospital from complications of a heart attack. He was 69 years-old.
Born in Detroit, Gurley's love of both blues and jazz led him to pick
up a guitar at the age of 19, citing Lightnin' Hopkins as an
influence but wanting to play like jazzman John Coltrane. Play it
like crazy. Moving to San Francisco in 1962, Gurley would meet
legendary promoter Chet Helms several years later that brought the
guitarist to 1090 Page Street to meet Peter Albin and Sam Andrew of
Big Brother and the Holding Company. Gurley joined the band soon
after and a self titled debut album was released in 1966.
The music of Big Brother and the Holding Company was typical of the
60s sound being produced in the San Francisco area. Bands like
Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger were
coming into their own and making names for themselves.
The eponymous album received a much needed shot in the arm after
their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Life would never be
the same for the band after that gig. They went on to sign with
Columbia Records, release the classic "Cheap Thrills" and spawn
singles "Ball and Chain," "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime." It
also marked the second and last album with powerhouse vocalist, Janis Joplin.
The band was never quit able to find their legs following her
departure. Several line-up changes which included the addition of
Kathi McDonald and Nick Gravenites and Gurley switching to bass over
the years, saw the band break up, make up, release four albums, and
eventually see Gurley leave the band for good to pursue a solo
career. In January 2000, "Pipe Dream" was released.
Co-founder Sam Andrew wrote on the bands' website, "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."
---------
Guitarist for Janis Joplin's Big Brother band dies
http://www.sfexaminer.com/entertainment/80074422.html?c=y
By: JOHN ROGERS
12/24/09
LOS ANGELES James Gurley, the innovative guitarist who helped shape
psychedelic rock's multilayered, sometimes thundering sounds as a
member of Big Brother and the Holding Company, the band that
propelled Janis Joplin to fame, has died of a heart attack. He was 69.
Gurley was pronounced dead Sunday at a Palm Springs hospital, two
days before his 70th birthday, the band announced on its Web site.
One of many prominent guitarists to emerge from San Francisco's
psychedelic music scene in the mid-1960s others included the
Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, Jefferson Airplane's Jorma Kaukonen and
Barry Melton of Country Joe and the Fish Gurley was hailed by many
as the original innovator of the sound.
"I would say all of my guitar-playing contemporaries strived to have
their own sound, but I think James was a huge influence on all of us
because he wasn't afraid to break the boundaries of conventional
music," Melton said Thursday. "What one thinks of that genre of music
is that place that it takes you to where the beat is just assumed and
the whole thing is transported to another place, and James is the guy
who started that."
Doing things like using an electric vibrator as a slide on his
guitar, and picking up amplifiers and shaking them during
performances, Gurley created a loud, esoteric sound that was the
driving force behind Joplin's voice on such classic songs as "Ball
and Chain," "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime."
"Some of the innovations were the result of the fact he came from
kind of a progressive bluegrass school of music where weirdness was
encouraged," said Peter Albin, the group's bass player.
One of the few rock guitarists to use finger picks rather than a flat
pick, Gurley had taught himself to play by listening to old Lightnin'
Hopkins blues records as a teenager.
He was playing acoustic guitar in a coffee house in San Francisco in
1965 when legendary counterculture figure Chet Helms, founder of the
Family Dog commune, introduced him to the other band members.
Although Joplin would become the public face of the band when she
joined in 1966, Albin recalled Gurley as being the true force of
nature who introduced the other members to alternative lifestyles,
psychedelic drugs and musical innovation.
"He was very influential to the whole band early on, and even later,
just by being a guy who had strange tastes and played guitar in a
very bizarre manner," Albin told The Associated Press.
When he first met Gurley, Albin said, the guitarist was living in a
walk-in closet with his wife and young son and told him that before
that he'd lived in a cardboard house along the California coast and
with indigenous people in the mountains of Mexico, where he had taken
part in hallucinogenic religious ceremonies.
After Joplin left Big Brother in 1968, the group disbanded but has
since reformed and continues to perform to this day. Gurley, however,
left for good in the late 1990s after a falling out with the other members.
Born in Detroit in 1939, Gurley was the son of a stunt-car driver
and, according to the band's Web site, would sometimes perform as a
"human hood ornament" when his father drove a car through a flaming
plywood wall.
After leaving Big Brother, he lived quietly in Palm Desert,
occasionally working on solo projects. He released the album "Pipe
Dreams" in 2000.
He is survived by his wife, Margaret, and sons Hongo and Django.
Band members plan to hold a memorial sometime next month in San Francisco.
-------
JAMES GURLEY, 69
James Gurley | Big Brother guitarist
http://www.miamiherald.com/living/story/1398120.html
BY VALERIE J. NELSON
12.25.09
LOS ANGELES -- James Gurley, a virtuosic guitarist with Big Brother &
the Holding Company, the psychedelic rock band that launched Janis
Joplin to stardom, died Sunday, two days before his 70th birthday.
Gurley was pronounced dead at a Palm Springs hospital after having a
heart attack at his Palm Desert home, according to the band.
``James was the spirit and the essence of the band in its early
days,'' Sam Andrew, a Big Brother singer-guitarist, wrote on the
band's website. ``James was the most unusual person I ever met, a
pioneer, a real original. . . .''
In 1965, he was playing guitar on San Francisco's coffeehouse circuit
when Chet Helms, Big Brother's manager, invited Gurley to jam with
the nascent band. Gurley's spellbinding finger-picking on the
electric guitar ``proved to be the missing component,'' according to
a biography on the band's website, and he became the center of Big
Brother's free-form style.
Many of his peers consider Gurley the fountainhead of psychedelic
guitar-playing, which ``gets improvisational and goes out to this
place where the beat is assumed,'' Barry Melton, lead guitarist for
Country Joe & the Fish, told Guitar Player magazine in 1997.
``The music is kind of out there in space, and James Gurley was the
first man in space! He's the Yuri Gagarin of psychedelic guitar,'' Melton said.
Gurley ``was the star of Big Brother,'' the group's drummer, Dave
Getz, said on the band's website, ``and then Janis came along.''
As they played informal concerts in a basement ballroom of a San
Francisco boardinghouse, Helms told the band, ``You need this chick I
know in Austin,'' Dennis McNally, a historian for the Grateful Dead,
said in a 2005 interview with the Los Angeles Times.
``The band went, `Right, right.' He sent a friend of his to Austin to
bring Janis out here, and the rest is history,'' McNally said.
With Joplin joining the group from Texas as lead singer in 1966, Big
Brother soon turned into one of the San Francisco Bay Area's leading
attractions. Her fierce ``blues-soaked delivery provided the perfect
foil to the unit's instrumental power,'' according to ``The
Encyclopedia of Popular Music.''
Big Brother became a sensation with its 1968 Cheap Thrills album,
which featured Gurley's intense, raw sound on such hits as Piece of
My Heart and Ball and Chain.
After Joplin left the band in 1968 for a solo career, the group
disbanded. She died of a heroin overdose in 1970.
Big Brother reconvened in 1969, with Gurley and Andrew in the lineup,
but after releasing two more albums, they broke up again in 1972.
In 1987, the early members of Big Brother reunited. Gurley toured
with them for a decade but left after a falling out.
Born Dec. 22, 1939, in Detroit, Gurley was the son of a stunt-car
driver and learned at an early age to be adventurous. As a boy, he
sometimes served as a ``human hood ornament'' by riding on the front
of cars as his father drove through walls of fire and other
obstructions, according to a biography on the band's website.
By 19, Gurley was teaching himself to play acoustic guitar, partly by
listening to records by Lightnin' Hopkins, a country blues guitarist.
He also was inspired by a 1963 performance by jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.
After Joplin joined Big Brother, she and Gurley had a brief affair
that ended when his wife, Nancy, confronted them while holding the
Gurleys' young son, according to the 2000 Joplin biography Scars of
Sweet Paradise.
In addition to his son Hongo, Gurley's survivors include his second
wife, Margaret, and another son, Django. The band is planning a
public memorial early next year in the San Francisco Bay Area.
-------
James Gurley, Guitarist in Big Brother, Dies at 69
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/arts/music/25gurley.html
By BEN SISARIO
Published: December 25, 2009
James Gurley, who played guitar in Big Brother and the Holding
Company, the psychedelic rock band that brought Janis Joplin to fame,
died on Sunday at his home in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 69.
The cause was a heart attack, said the band's manager, Tim Murphy.
One of the central groups of San Francisco's fertile mid-1960s rock
scene, Big Brother and the Holding Company took blues-based songs on
long, strange, electric trips that often featured Mr. Gurley's
protracted solos. In an interview in 2007 with The Desert Sun, in
Palm Springs, Calif., Mr. Gurley said that his approach was inspired
by the music of John Coltrane.
"I heard a lone saxophone raging like a madman," he said. "And that's
what developed my style: Play it like crazy."
The son of a Detroit stunt-car driver, Mr. Gurley moved to San
Francisco in the early 1960s and became a staple of the music scene
there. He joined his fellow guitarists Sam Andrew and Peter Albin to
form Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1965. At the suggestion
of the band's manager, Chet Helms, Joplin joined as lead singer in
June 1966 and the group quickly shot to fame.
After performing at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, Big
Brother was aggressively pursued by Clive Davis of Columbia Records.
Following months of negotiations to extract the band from an earlier
record contract, Columbia signed the group for about $250,000,
according to Fredric Dannen's book "Hit Men: Power Brokers and Fast
Money Inside the Music Business" (Random House, 1990).
"Cheap Thrills," the band's first album for Columbia, went to No. 1
and became one of the biggest hits of 1968. The group's single "Piece
of My Heart" reached No. 12 on the Billboard pop chart.
But by the end of 1968 Joplin had left the group to embark on a solo
career. Big Brother and the Holding Company recorded two albums
without her before disbanding in 1972.
Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970. She was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, without her former band.
"They invited us to come and play for the induction of her," Mr.
Gurley told The Desert Sun in 2007. "And we did it. My picture's in
there with her, but I'm not in the official list of inductees. That hurts."
Mr. Gurley continued to play music after Big Brother's breakup. He
performed with a reunited version of the band from 1987 to 1997.
His survivors include his wife, Margaret, and two sons, Django and Hongo.
--------
Big Brother guitarist James Gurley dies at 69
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_14050483
Paul Liberatore
Posted: 12/22/2009
James Gurley, the influential guitarist for Big Brother and the
Holding Company who was responsible for the band's early psychedelic
sound, died of a heart attack Sunday at his home in Palm Desert, two
days shy of his 70th birthday.
After Janis Joplin joined the band in 1966, Mr. Gurley and the rest
of the group lived communally in a big house in Lagunitas while they
developed their sound and style. He later bought a house in San
Anselmo, where he lived for several years in the early 1970s.
Famed rock promoter Chet Helms brought both Mr. Gurley and Joplin
into the band while the group was in its formative phase, playing in
a basement on Page Street in the Haight Ashbury.
Big Brother singer-guitarist Sam Andrew of San Geronimo called Mr.
Gurley "the spirit and the essence of the band in its early days."
"He walked in with his great big dog and his very loud wife and baby
and changed the band overnight," Andrew recalled. "He became the
focus, the important thing. He was plugged into the early San
Francisco scene before the rest of us were. At the time, it was real
magic having him around."
Born in Detroit in 1939, Mr. Gurley liked to dress in black and play
in a wild style that Big Brother drummer David Getz of Fairfax
described as "real freaky psychedelic guitar playing."
His raw sound can be heard on classic hits like "Piece of My Heart"
and "Ball and Chain."
"He had an original sound and an original idea and approach," Getz
said. "In the early days, he was doing what no one else was doing,
attacking the guitar in a frenzy of pure sound."
In 2007, Mr. Gurley was voted one of Marin's "guitar heroes" in an
Independent Journal survey based on e-mail responses from local
musicians and others.
Mr. Gurley was known to have had a brief affair with Joplin before
she left the band for a solo career. In 1970, he was charged with
murder in Sonoma County after his wife, Nancy, died of a heroin
overdose. He was accused of injecting her with the drugs. He was
ultimately acquitted of the murder charge.
Without Joplin, Big Brother disbanded in 1972, then regrouped in 1987
to return to the touring circuit with a lineup that included Mr.
Gurley, Getz, Andrew and bassist Peter Albin, all from the original group.
Mr. Gurley eventually had a falling out with the band and quit in
late 1996. In 2000, he released a solo album, "Pipe Dreams."
Mr. Gurley is survived by his second wife, Margaret, who was with him
when he died. He also leaves two sons, Hongo and Django. Members of
Big Brother are planning a memorial concert to be held in January to
benefit Mr. Gurley's family.
--
Contact Paul Liberatore via e-mail at liberatore@marinij.com
.
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