Big Brother & The Holding Company

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San Francisco, United States (1965 – 1968, 1969 – 1972, 1987 – present)

Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Airplane. They are best known as the band that featured Janis Joplin as their lead singer. Their 1968 album “Cheap Thrills” is considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco; it reached number one on the US Billboard charts, and was ranked number 338 in Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The band was formed by Peter Albin, Sam Andrew, James Gurley (1939 – 2009) and Chuck Jones in San Francisco, in a Victorian mansion/boarding house owned by Peter’s uncle at 1090 Page Street in the Haight-Ashbury. That house became the site of Wednesday night jam sessions which were organized by Chet Helms who was the real “Big Brother,” naming the band, bringing James Gurley into the fold and later seeing that his old friend Janis Joplin came to sing with them. The first official Big Brother gig was at the Open Theater in Berkeley, January 1966. Within a short time they became the house band for Chet at the Avalon Ballroom and began to develop a loyal following, largely due to the charismatic, pioneering guitarwork of James Gurley. The band had what Sam Andrew callled a “progressive-regressive hurricane blues style,” playing such tunes as Hall of the Mountain King, Coo Coo, That’s How Strong My Love Is, and Down On Me. Janis Joplin made her debut with Big Brother at the Avalon Ballroom in June 1966, and a year later, in June 1967, Big Brother and Janis performed at The Monterey Pop Festival.

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Popular tags: classic rock, psychedelic rock, psychedelic, blues, rock  See more

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1		Piece of My Heart			1,228
2		Summertime			514
3		Combination Of The Two			399
4		I Need a Man To Love			360
5		Ball and Chain			341
6		Turtle Blues			286
7		Down On Me			260
8		Oh, Sweet Mary			222
9		Call On Me			207
10		Bye, Bye Baby			203
11		Women Is Losers			162
12		Easy Rider			149
13		Light Is Faster Than Sound			125
14		All Is Loneliness			121
15		Blindman			115

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