Big Brother and the Holding Company: The 1978 James Gurley Interview

Following their stunning performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, Big Brother and the Holding Company hit the top of the album charts with Cheap Thrills. This psychedelic masterwork featured the astounding vocals of Janis Joplin and the groundbreaking guitar work of James Gurley and Sam Andrew. “Piece of My Heart” remains one of the era’s defining singles. Many of those who were on the scene cite James Gurley as the father of psychedelic guitar in San Francisco.

Barry “The Fish” Melton, guitarist on San Francisco’s first commercially released psychedelic record, Country Joe & the Fish’s 1965 “Bass Strings” backed with “Section 43,” explains, “James is the founder of psychedelic guitar because he was the first guy to play in the zone. He never really played straight all that well, but the thing that defines psychedelic guitar – because certainly the chord boxes are the same as folk – is that it gets improvisational and goes out to this place where the beat is assumed. The music is kind of out there in space, and James Gurley was the first man in space! He’s the Yury Gagarin of psychedelic guitar.”

Big Brother’s ride to the top of the charts would be short-lived. After Cheap Thrills, Janis Joplin quit the band to go off on her own. Big Brother carried on for two more albums – Be a Brother and How Hard It Is – before disbanding around 1973. Five years later, Chet Helms, the band’s original organizer, persuaded its original members – Gurley and Andrew, bassist Peter Album, and drummer Dave Getz – to reunite for the Tribal Stomp concert, held in Berkeley, California, on October 1, 1978. At the time, I was the new editor at Guitar Player magazine. Helms invited staff photographer Jon Sievert and me to the band’s rehearsals in San Rafael the day before the show. When Jon and I arrived, we learned that the previous day was the first time James Gurley and Sam Andrew had seen each other in five years. Fans of Guitar Player magazine, both guitarists expressed interest in doing interviews. I spoke with James first, in the interview that follows. Later, over lunch, I interviewed with Sam and James together; this is posted here: http://jasobrecht.com/big-brother-holding-company-1978-sam-andrew-james-gurley-interview-part-1/. At the start of our conversation, James and I discovered that we’d both come from the same neighborhood in Detroit.