Janis Joplin - Big Brother and The Holding Company: 1966–1968

Big Brother and The Holding Company: 1966–1968

In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, a band that had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who had known her in Texas and who at the time was managing Big Brother. Helms brought her back to San Francisco and Joplin joined Big Brother on June 4, 1966. Her first public performance with them was at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. In June, she was photographed at an outdoor concert that celebrated the summer solstice. The image, which was later published in two books by David Dalton, shows her before she relapsed into drugs. Due to persistent persuading by keyboardist and close friend Stephen Ryder, Joplin avoided drug use for several weeks, enjoining bandmate Dave Getz to promise that using needles would not be allowed in their rehearsal space or in her apartment or in the homes of her bandmates whom she visited. When a visitor injected drugs in front of Joplin and Getz, Joplin angrily reminded Getz that he had broken his promise. A San Francisco concert from that summer was recorded and released in the 1984 album Cheaper Thrills. In July, all five bandmates and guitarist James Gurley's wife Nancy moved to a house in Lagunitas, California, where they lived communally. They often partied with the Grateful Dead, who lived less than two miles away.

On August 23, 1966, during a four week engagement in Chicago, the group signed a deal with independent label Mainstream Records. Joplin relapsed into drinking when she and her bandmates (except for Peter Albin) joined some "alcoholic hipsters", as Joplin biographer Ellis Amburn described them, in Chicago. The band recorded tracks in a Chicago recording studio, but the label owner Bob Shad refused to pay their airfare back to San Francisco. Shortly after four of the five musicians drove from Chicago to Northern California with very little money (Albin traveled by plane), they returned to Lagunitas. It was there that Joplin relapsed into intravenous drug use. Nancy Gurley was an enabler. Three years later, Joplin, by then using a different band, was informed of Gurley's death from an overdose.

One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple.

In early 1967, Joplin met Country Joe McDonald of the group Country Joe and the Fish. The pair lived together as a couple for a few months. Joplin and Big Brother began playing clubs in San Francisco, at the Fillmore West, Winterland and the Avalon Ballroom. They also played at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, as well as in Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia, the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Golden Bear Club in Huntington Beach, California.