Big Brother and the Holding Company
Biography Page 2
Following the Monterey Pop Festival performance, Big Brother was signed by Columbia Records. Their second album, Cheap Thrills, was a tremendous success, monopolizing the number one spot on the charts for eight weeks. The musicianship on the album is unparalleled. James Gurley, who has been called the "Father of Psychedelic Guitar" by Guitar Player magazine, and Sam Andrew took the dueling lead guitars to new heights. Rick Clark, in the All Music Book, said: "Anyone who thinks Guns N' Roses mastered hard electric blues-grunge hasn't heard Big Brother's James Gurley and Sam Houston Andrew duke it out on tracks like 'Ball And Chain', 'Summertime' and 'Combination Of The Two'."

By the close of 1968, Janis Joplin had decided to leave the band. Sam Andrew joined her in her new Kozmic Blues Band, and Peter Albin and David Getz joined Country Joe and The Fish. Big Brother ceased to exist for a period of months; but by the early fall of 1969 the band was resurrected. Peter, Sam, Dave and James were back together, joined off and on by David Schallock (guitar, vocals), Nick Gravenites (vocals), and Kathi McDonald (vocals), and others. Two more Columbia albums were released: Be A Brother (1970), and How Hard It Is (1971). Events and situations of that time in the band's history eventually took their toll and Big Brother began to come apart as a band. The individual members remained friends and became involved in other bands and musical projects.

Between 1971 and 1978 Big Brother and the Holding Company played together only once, for an October 1978 show organized by Chet Helms at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. The rebirth of the band occurred almost ten years later in 1987, coinciding with the twentieth anniversary of the Summer of Love. Today’s Big Brother and the Holding Company features original band members Sam Andrew, Dave Getz, and Peter Albin, joined by guitarist Tom Finch and Maria Stanford on lead vocals. The backbone of the band remains its solid rhythm section and the signature psychedelic "Blues in Technicolor" guitar work that fuses classical, jazz, blues and rock into an amazing sound that is as impressive in the 90's as it was in the 60's.

Since reuniting, Big Brother has played to enthusiastic audiences around the world. The dueling guitars of Andrew and Gurley, the rhythmic bass of Albin, and the solid beat of Getz have critics proclaiming their sound today as "fresh and crisp" as it was thirty years ago. In concert, Big Brother and the Holding Company perform their hits including “Down On Me,” “Ball And Chain,” “Summertime” and “Piece of My Heart” with the electricity that fired such iconic events as the Monterey Pop Festival. As a tribute to Janis, and in response to overwhelming requests, the band also includes Janis’s later hits such as “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Mercedes Benz” in their live sets. A new studio album, Do What You Love was released in 1998. This edition of Big Brother and the Holding Company is a band not to be missed.


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