And pay my water bill!
Posted on 02/17/2015 12:53:18 PM PST by a fool in paradise
Sam Andrew, a founding member and guitarist of the San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, died Thursday in San Rafael. He was 73.
His death, of complications from open-heart surgery after a heart attack, was confirmed by John Byrne Cooke, a friend and former manager...
Big Brother served as the house band at the Avalon Ballroom, which was run by band manager Chet Helms before recruiting Joplin and gaining international attention with their explosive performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
“She walked in one day and started singing some songs,” Mr. Andrew said in an interview with Music Radar. “It wasn’t like she was auditioning; she was coming to join the band. I remember when she opened her mouth and started to sing, I thought, 'Wow! That sounds really authentic.’”
Mr. Andrew, who started the group in 1965 with guitarist Peter Albin at a Victorian located at 1090 Page St., was responsible for some of the most enduring riffs of the psychedelic rock era, including his work on songs such as “Piece of My Heart” and “Combination of the Two.” He was also responsible for Big Brother’s extraordinary arrangement of George Gershwin’s “Summertime.”
In 1968, shortly after Big Brother released its No. 1-charting “Cheap Thrills” album, Mr. Andrew and Joplin, who died in 1970, left to form the Kozmic Blues Band and released the album “I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!”
“She wanted to have a soul band,” Mr. Andrew said in the interview. “So I went with her. I was curious to see what would happen...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
LSD gives you the stupidest band names ever.
“Farty and the Chum Guzzlers.” Jeez.
For this band it was pot: The Holding Company, THC.
RIP.
You mean “Sam Houston Andrew III!! Guitar and Bass! (scream!...sigh!...pant pant!)”
Their sound was unlike any other before. It hit me like a bomb.
Simple three chord blues numbers can be compelling.
Note: I was not into drugs.
Are you holding man?
Wow! Do I feel old “Cheap Thrills” was a great album. “Piece of my heart” was a killer
They were a bit sloppy, but it really didn’t detract from the songs, because they had enough soul to make up for it :)
Oh lord wontcha buy me a color TV.
“Ball And Chain’’ was a good one too.
And pay my water bill!
bump
“They were a bit sloppy, but it really didn’t detract from the songs, because they had enough soul to make up for it :)
“
Ditto, Janis was better with them than with technically better musicians. There was more ‘room’ for her to use.
Yeah, she shone when the band was trying to keep up with her, rather than when she was trying to keep up with the band.
Should that be shined? Shone, shined, whatever!
Whichever (whatever, however?) -you put it well.
Sigh, Janus took a “Little Piece of My Heart” with her.
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