BIG BROTHER BLUES

In light of the recent passing of Sam Andrew I thought it would be a good thing to work out some Big Brother and the Holding Company. We of course know the history of the band and the focus on Janis, Big Brother has never really been given it's due as a talented group , It was all about Janis.. Sam Andrew had always kept his band going  (short of his blunder of going with Janis when she left BB. Essentially killing the career of BB at the time.. Sam returned a couple of years later and put a new twist on the music of BB. Janis was it but she was replaceable for what music they would  play after getting back together. Kathi McDonald was a perfect fir for the band with her blusey background, She participated in the "How Hard It Is" LP and contributed to the recordings of "Can't Go Home Again" recording in a very prominent role. Sadly Kathi passed away a couple of years back but if you pull her up on YouTube  you will find some very powerful performances, Her version of the Etta James classic " I'd Rather Go Blind" is as good as if not better than the original.. An interesting tidbit about Kathi (who has a very strong resume of vocals with a lot of people) is she was actually to audition for the BB vocalist job bur Janis beat her to the punch, What could have been the BBHC story had Kathi been the original female lead ?. Maybe just maybe they might have developed into a great blues band with the respect these musicians deserved.

In rehearsal for the Stomp

Tracks 1-5 are taken from the How Hard It Is Lp

Tracks 7-13 are from the Big Brother performance at the 1978 Tribal Stomp

Tracks 6,14- 20 are from the Can't Go Home again LP

THE MISSING TRACK # 6 HAS BEEN CORRECTED

BBHC 67

 

Going to swing back to the bay area Haight days for a post or two. I will get around to some reposts soon (I hope) so be patient. Here's a set from BBHC . I have to be truthful and say that they were not really my favorite SF band but I respect their impact on bay area music during that great timeline.

Big Brother & the Holding Company

Disc One (of two) – 63:14
Unknown dates, 1967
Matrix, San Francisco

d1t01. Flower in the Sun  4:39
d1t02. High Heel Sneakers  3:44
d1t03. Song intro > Turtle Blues  7:11
d1t04. Tuning  0:33
d1t05. "…your best friend is a Psychedelic Ranger, your policeman."  0:29
d1t06. tuning  0:37
d1t07. song intro > Bye Bye Baby  4:43
d1t08. tuning  0:11
d1t09. Song intro > Brownsville > "...we  be back a little bit later…"  6:28
d1t10. "…their second set of the evening, BBATHC." > Down on Me  3:12
d1t11. song intro
d1t12. The One (Intruder)  3:43
d1t13. Blindman  2:58
d1t14. Ball and Chain  7:57
d1t15. Amazing Grace > rap  8:51  >
d1t16. Summertime (x)  7:33
d1t17. Applause  0:05
d1t18. "…BBATHC, they'll be back tomorrow night…"  0:10


Disc Two (of two) – 54:30
Benefit for the Matrix at the Fillmore 6/16/1968

d2t01. "Everybody up…" > intro > Catch Me Daddy  6:26
d2t02. Combination of the Two  7:20
d2t03. I Need a Man to Love  6:40
d2t04. Summertime  4:54
d2t05. Road Block  9:43
d2t06. Mr. Natural  7:50
d2t07. Farewell Song  5:20
d2t08. Encore:  Piece of My Heart > outro > "…Steve Miller…"  6:16

HEY BIG BROTHER

 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 bands history eventually took their toll and over a period of months beginning in 1972
Big Brother began to come apart as a band. The individual members remained friends and became involved in other bands and musical projects. The band continues to perform today in assorted lineups.

This one is from the  "Be A Brother" - "How Hard It Is"  band lineup 

BIG BROTHER AND THE HOLDING COMPANY FILLMORE WEST,S.F. AUG.13,1970

1-INTRO
2-MAUI
3-KEEP ON
4-WHY
5-SUNSHINE BABY
6-HOME ON THE STRANGE
7-FUNKIE JIM
8-HEARTACHE PEOPLE
9-THE CARD GAME
10-JOSEPH'S COAT
11-I'LL CHANGE YOUR FLAT TIRE MERLE
12-BE A BROTHER
13-CROWD
14-GOODNIGHT IRENE
15-OUTRO

JANIS AND HER BROTHERS

Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Co.: Reunion Concert.
Recorded Live at Filmore West, San Francisco, USA - April 04, 1970.
Disc 1

01. Combination Of The Two
02. Heartache People
03. Ego Rock *
04. Easy Rider
05. Maybe
06. Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)

Disc 2
01. Be A Brother
02. All Is Loneliness
03. Summertime
04. Coo Coo
05. Ball & Chain
06. Piece Of My Heart

Personnel:

Janis Joplin

Peter Albin

Sam Andrew

James Gurley

David Getz

1090 PAGE STREET

Sometime in the spring or summer of 1964, Rodney Albin’s uncle acquired a twenty-two room Victorian boarding house on the corner of Page and Broderick Streets in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. The place had seen better days. Built in the 1880s by the owner of a high-toned downtown haberdashery, it had all the modern 1888 conveniences – speaking tubes, a doorbell that rang on each floor, and gas lighting sconces on the walls for when the electricity went out. Its pearl, though, was in the basement: a full-sized ballroom with a stage in one alcove. The entire room was lined with glowing virgin redwood panels.
But in the 1940s, 1090 Page Street was downscaled from a mansion to a boarding house. Life Magazine mentioned it in a 1961 story titled “The Irish in America.” It featured a full-page photo of thirty ‘typical Irish’ working stiffs and Mrs. Minton, their landlady, all leaning out the windows of 1090 Page waving madly.
For Rodney’s uncle, the building was strictly a business investment. He was planning to tear it down and replace it with federally funded senior housing. But the deal was bogged down in Washington somewhere, so Rodney approached him – he knew a way his uncle could make some money on the place while he waited to finalize the deal. Why not rent rooms to San Francisco State students? Why, it happened that Rodney himself was a State student. With his connections he could easily fill the place with the most respectable type of student, earnest and studious. Rodney guaranteed him $600 a month, and was soon installed as landlord of what would become possibly the most renowned proto-hippie/scruffy student pad in San Francisco’s short history. By fall, the place was jumping. Since rooms began at $15 a month, it was affordable, to say the least.
Partial article from the Pondering Pig @
http://ponderingpig.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/luminaries-of-the-haight-4-1090-page-street/

1. Light is Faster than Sound
2. Bye Bye Baby
3. I Need a Man to Love
4. History
5. Summertime
6. Piece of my Heart
7. Women is Losers
8. All is Loneliness
9. Call on Me
10. Ball and Chain
11. Moanin' at Midnight
12. Comin' Home
13. Down on Me