James Gurley, former guitarist of Big Brother and the Holding Company, the psychedelic blues acid rock band from San Francisco who assisted Janis Joplin on her meteoric rise to fame in the late 60's has passed away from a heart attack December 20th at the age of 69. He was two days shy of his 70th birthday.Born in Detroit, Michigan on December 22, 1939, Gurley took up the guitar at the age of nineteen, practicing long hours listening to blues, particularly fond of bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins. In 1962, he moved to San Francisco and became part of the coffee-house circuit, playing in the folk and country blues tradition.
In the summer of 1965, legendary promoter Chet Helms brought James to 1090 Page Street to meet Peter Albin and Sam Andrew of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and shortly thereafter, he joined the band. In June of 1966, Joplin joined the band, and shortly thereafter she and Gurley began a short lived affair.
At the end of 1966, Big Brother signed a contract with Mainstream Records, with their debut album, 'Big Brother & the Holding Company' released the following year. Initially not garnering much national attention, following the band's historic performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, it finally debuted on Billboard's album charts in September, peaking at #43.
Signing with Columbia Records in November 1967, the resulting album 'Cheap Thrills' , released in the summer of 1968, one year after their debut album reached number one on the Billboard charts in its eighth week in October. It held the number one spot for eight (nonconsecutive) weeks. Considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco, it was ranked number 338 in Rolling Stone's 500 greatest albums of all time.
At the end of the summer of 1968, just after appearing at the Palace of Fine Arts Festival in San Francisco, Joplin announced that she was leaving Big Brother in the fall of that year. After breaking up, the band got back together in the fall of 1969, with Kathi McDonald and Nick Gravenites on lead vocals, albeit with Gurley on bass, not guitar. After releasing two more studio albums the band called it a day in 1972.
Reuniting in 1987, Gurley left the band in 1996 due to not supporting his colleagues idea to hire a female singer to replace Joplin, and to concentrate on solo projects. An album 'Pipe Dreams' was released in January 2000.
