Living with the myth of Janis Joplin
For those of you who are fans of Janis Joplin and / or Big Brother and the Holding Company, Michael Spörke has written a book you simply must read:
Living with the myth of Janis Joplin. The History of Big Brother and the Holding Co. 1965-2005
You can get all the info by clicking on the link above at Amazon.com.
Being fortunate to live just outside of San Francisco from 1965 through 1967, I had the excellent good fortune to see Big Brother and the Holding Company many times, get to know Janis fairly well and spend some time with various members of the band during these amazing years. Jim Gurley, Big Brother’s lead guitarist was one of my two guitar heros during the formative years of the San Francisco Sound. The other was John Cipollina, a good friend until his untimely death in 1989.
The books synopsis from Amazon.com:
“To many people, Big Brother and the Holding Company has always meant Janis Joplin. Big Brother, who gave Janis a platform for success by giving her the freedom and the energy to develop her musical style, were considered amateurish and unprofessional by many reviewers. Simply put, Janis Joplin’s fame and glory overshadowed the band. This book tells the band’s story, how difficult it was to find an identity separate from Joplin’s towering talent. Big Brother and the Holding Company were and are far more than a Janis Joplin backup band. Big Brother were the pioneers of the San Francisco sound and are among the outstanding representatives of psychedelic music. This book describes the life story of each of the members of Big Brother: where they came from, what their roots were, how they see their time with Janis Joplin, and what they experienced afterwards. It has been written with the close participation of the musicians themselves.”