look what his mother sent me!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
R.I.P. James Gurley
James Gurley – Janis Joplin’s Guitarist 1939-2009
James Gurley, the fiery guitarist from Big Brother & the Holding Company, the band that helped propel singer Janis Joplin to international prominence, passed away at his Palm Desert home on December 20th.
He was 69.
Hailed by Guitar Player magazine as “The Father of the Psychedelic Guitar,” Mr. Gurley was best known for his jaw dropping, frenzied guitar solos in such classics as: “Combination of The Two,” “Ball and Chain,” and “Piece of My Heart.”
Born James Martin Gurley, he grew up in Detroit, MI, and was a self taught musician originally inspired by the recordings of the seminal bluesman Lightning Hopkins. The son of a stunt car driver, Mr. Gurley was once featured as a human hood ornament while his father sped though a flaming plywood wall.
An extremely spiritual man, Mr. Gurley spent four years with the Brothers of the Holy Cross in Detroit studying for the priesthood. Mr. Gurley’s priestly ambitions ended when he met his first wife, Nancy at Wayne State University in 1957. By then, Mr. Gurley was playing in coffee houses around Detroit including The Cup of Socrates. The two married, then traveled to Mexico, and lived in Los Angeles and Big Sur, before settling in San Francisco’s North Beach District in 1962. Both immersed themselves in the flourishing Beatnik scene as Mr. Gurley performed in coffee houses playing country blues while his wife Nancy worked at the legendary jazz Mecca ~ Jimbo’s Bop City.
In Nick Gravenites autobiography Bad Talking Bluesman he recalled meeting Mr., Gurley on his first visit to San Francisco in 1963, “James Gurley was one of the few people in Beatnik San Francisco who was playing the blues, and I knew from personal experience that he was a strange character. We used to hang out together at a folk music bar in North Beach called The Coffee Gallery, and one day I saw him on the street and he had his head shaved bald and had stopped talking. I heard from friends that he had had a motorcycle accident while visiting his family in Detroit and had ceased communicating with words. The only way he would communicate was with facial expressions. He had a girlfriend who carried a beanbag frog everywhere she went, and they made an odd trio, James, his girlfriend, and the frog. Instead of talking to James, you'd talk to the frog. Somehow, the frog made it all make sense.”
It was while performing in North Beach that Mr. Gurley first heard a young blues singer from Port Arthur, Texas, named Janis Joplin. Like many, Mr. Gurley was impressed with her guitar and vocal styling reminiscent of Bessie Smith. In 1965, through the urging of Chet Helms, Mr. Gurley went to 1090 Page Street to meet with San Andrew and Peter Albin who were forming Big Brother & the Holding Company, and shortly thereafter, Mr. Gurley joined the band. When they needed a singer, both Mr. Albin and Mr. Gurley remembered hearing a young unbridled blues singer in North Beach, the only thing was, Janis Joplin had moved back to Texas. Chet Helms would eventually coax Ms. Joplin back to San Francisco to join Big Brother.
A staple at the Fillmore and Avalon Ballrooms, Big Brother and the Holding Company would go on to perform at the legendary Monterrey Pop Festival in 1966 bursting on the national music scene. With the success of their classic album, Cheap Thrills (Columbia), the band became superstars. However, the stardom was to be short lived as Ms. Joplin was enticed to leave Big Brother in 1969 by their manager Albert Grossman. With the loss of their lead singer, the band never really recovered, going through singers such as Kathi McDonald and Nick Gravenites and recording a couple of more albums, before disbanding in 1972. The band would reunite in 1987 with the four original surviving members. Mr. Gurley left the band in 1997 to pursue other musical projects.
In recent years, Mr. Gurley spent his time between homes in Cupertino, CA, and Palm Desert, CA painting and immersing himself in musical projects. He recorded several albums with New Age drummer Muruga Booker while also releasing solo albums, “Pipe Dreams,” and “Saint James.” Perhaps the most significant recording project was one that Mr. Gurley did called “This Is Janis Joplin,” in which Mr. Gurley took a recording that he made of Janis Joplin during her coffee house folk years and added instrumental backing tracks. This recording was the long lost link between Ms. Joplin’s early folk years and her accent to rock stardom. Mr. Gurley performed in Golden Gate Park in 2005 for the Chet Helms Tribal Stomp honoring the man who turned him on to Big Brother. Mr. Gurley’s last recordings were made during the last weeks of his life as he recorded with Muruga Booker while in Michigan.
News of James Gurley’s death brought out remembrances from his peers such as Country Joe and The Fish guitarist Barry “The Fish” Melton who recalled: “James Gurley was the Yuri Gagarin of rock & roll -- the first man in space! There was only handful of us that created our mini-genre of psychedelic guitar, and James was the avatar who blazed the path for the rest of us.”
Mr. Gurley was survived by wife Margaret Gurley, sons Adam Reisman (nee Hongo Gurley), Django Gurley, granddaughter of James and Nancy Gurley (deceased) Sierra Noel Reisman, sisters Ms. Darlene Grigg, Mrs. Georgee Jarvis, uncle Major Robert Pier, and many beloved nieces and nephews. Services are private.
Plans are in the works for memorial honoring James Gurley to be held in San Francisco in 2010.
###
Media Contact: J.C. Juanis
thepublicityzone@aol.com
James Gurley, the fiery guitarist from Big Brother & the Holding Company, the band that helped propel singer Janis Joplin to international prominence, passed away at his Palm Desert home on December 20th.
He was 69.
Hailed by Guitar Player magazine as “The Father of the Psychedelic Guitar,” Mr. Gurley was best known for his jaw dropping, frenzied guitar solos in such classics as: “Combination of The Two,” “Ball and Chain,” and “Piece of My Heart.”
Born James Martin Gurley, he grew up in Detroit, MI, and was a self taught musician originally inspired by the recordings of the seminal bluesman Lightning Hopkins. The son of a stunt car driver, Mr. Gurley was once featured as a human hood ornament while his father sped though a flaming plywood wall.
An extremely spiritual man, Mr. Gurley spent four years with the Brothers of the Holy Cross in Detroit studying for the priesthood. Mr. Gurley’s priestly ambitions ended when he met his first wife, Nancy at Wayne State University in 1957. By then, Mr. Gurley was playing in coffee houses around Detroit including The Cup of Socrates. The two married, then traveled to Mexico, and lived in Los Angeles and Big Sur, before settling in San Francisco’s North Beach District in 1962. Both immersed themselves in the flourishing Beatnik scene as Mr. Gurley performed in coffee houses playing country blues while his wife Nancy worked at the legendary jazz Mecca ~ Jimbo’s Bop City.
In Nick Gravenites autobiography Bad Talking Bluesman he recalled meeting Mr., Gurley on his first visit to San Francisco in 1963, “James Gurley was one of the few people in Beatnik San Francisco who was playing the blues, and I knew from personal experience that he was a strange character. We used to hang out together at a folk music bar in North Beach called The Coffee Gallery, and one day I saw him on the street and he had his head shaved bald and had stopped talking. I heard from friends that he had had a motorcycle accident while visiting his family in Detroit and had ceased communicating with words. The only way he would communicate was with facial expressions. He had a girlfriend who carried a beanbag frog everywhere she went, and they made an odd trio, James, his girlfriend, and the frog. Instead of talking to James, you'd talk to the frog. Somehow, the frog made it all make sense.”
It was while performing in North Beach that Mr. Gurley first heard a young blues singer from Port Arthur, Texas, named Janis Joplin. Like many, Mr. Gurley was impressed with her guitar and vocal styling reminiscent of Bessie Smith. In 1965, through the urging of Chet Helms, Mr. Gurley went to 1090 Page Street to meet with San Andrew and Peter Albin who were forming Big Brother & the Holding Company, and shortly thereafter, Mr. Gurley joined the band. When they needed a singer, both Mr. Albin and Mr. Gurley remembered hearing a young unbridled blues singer in North Beach, the only thing was, Janis Joplin had moved back to Texas. Chet Helms would eventually coax Ms. Joplin back to San Francisco to join Big Brother.
A staple at the Fillmore and Avalon Ballrooms, Big Brother and the Holding Company would go on to perform at the legendary Monterrey Pop Festival in 1966 bursting on the national music scene. With the success of their classic album, Cheap Thrills (Columbia), the band became superstars. However, the stardom was to be short lived as Ms. Joplin was enticed to leave Big Brother in 1969 by their manager Albert Grossman. With the loss of their lead singer, the band never really recovered, going through singers such as Kathi McDonald and Nick Gravenites and recording a couple of more albums, before disbanding in 1972. The band would reunite in 1987 with the four original surviving members. Mr. Gurley left the band in 1997 to pursue other musical projects.
In recent years, Mr. Gurley spent his time between homes in Cupertino, CA, and Palm Desert, CA painting and immersing himself in musical projects. He recorded several albums with New Age drummer Muruga Booker while also releasing solo albums, “Pipe Dreams,” and “Saint James.” Perhaps the most significant recording project was one that Mr. Gurley did called “This Is Janis Joplin,” in which Mr. Gurley took a recording that he made of Janis Joplin during her coffee house folk years and added instrumental backing tracks. This recording was the long lost link between Ms. Joplin’s early folk years and her accent to rock stardom. Mr. Gurley performed in Golden Gate Park in 2005 for the Chet Helms Tribal Stomp honoring the man who turned him on to Big Brother. Mr. Gurley’s last recordings were made during the last weeks of his life as he recorded with Muruga Booker while in Michigan.
News of James Gurley’s death brought out remembrances from his peers such as Country Joe and The Fish guitarist Barry “The Fish” Melton who recalled: “James Gurley was the Yuri Gagarin of rock & roll -- the first man in space! There was only handful of us that created our mini-genre of psychedelic guitar, and James was the avatar who blazed the path for the rest of us.”
Mr. Gurley was survived by wife Margaret Gurley, sons Adam Reisman (nee Hongo Gurley), Django Gurley, granddaughter of James and Nancy Gurley (deceased) Sierra Noel Reisman, sisters Ms. Darlene Grigg, Mrs. Georgee Jarvis, uncle Major Robert Pier, and many beloved nieces and nephews. Services are private.
Plans are in the works for memorial honoring James Gurley to be held in San Francisco in 2010.
###
Media Contact: J.C. Juanis
thepublicityzone@aol.com
Nutter Butters Et Al
To quote Sophia Petrillo, "Picture it: Sicily 1922..." Just kidding. Picture it: "Larkspur, California July 1970... I have been signed in to Marin General Hospital a day ahead of having oral surgery to remove my impacted wisdom teeth. Unfortunately for the staff there, this directly clashed with my previous plans to see the Grateful Dead at Pepperland (or maybe they were calling it Euphoria then, I don't remember and I don't really care) in San Rafael. There was no way in hell I was missing that show, so my good friend, Jeannie Harvey, came over to visit me, brought me some clothes, I got dressed and we went out for awhile. OK. For most of the night. We did go to the Dead show, as did Janis Joplin, and it was one of those nights she sat in with Pig Pen. I seem to remember that David Crosby also crashed into that gig but I could be confused (I was, you see, heavily medicated). Anyway, after the show, we stopped off at the local Mayfair Market (it was an all night market in San Rafael) and bought some Nutter Butter peanut butter cookies, you know the ones that look sort of like Hershey bars (the ones with the waffle like tabs to break them apart into sections) in terms of form. Anyway, I snuck back in to the hospital where nobody seemed to have noticed I had gone missing for the evening and ate the cookies in spite of instructions to not eat anything after 8 PM. Oh, what did those losers know?
Next morning, they hauled my sorry ass in to the operating room and removed the teeth. I woke up retching my guts out from the bad combination of anesthesia and cookies. Just another one of life's lessons learned the hard way and I had quite forgotten it until today...
Deb and I were in Mollie Stone's and she pointed out a package of nutter butters, the originals as opposed to the stupid peanut shaped ones. And that is why I have brought this up after 39.5 years. Wow. I DO need a life."
Next morning, they hauled my sorry ass in to the operating room and removed the teeth. I woke up retching my guts out from the bad combination of anesthesia and cookies. Just another one of life's lessons learned the hard way and I had quite forgotten it until today...
Deb and I were in Mollie Stone's and she pointed out a package of nutter butters, the originals as opposed to the stupid peanut shaped ones. And that is why I have brought this up after 39.5 years. Wow. I DO need a life."
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Trouble Makers, Shit Disturbers and Outsiders Wanting to be Insiders
During the past month or so, I have been publicly flogged and vilified for things I did not do as well as for things I did do but were misinterpreted by outsiders who witnessed what they thought was one thing when in fact, it was something completely different, and so here I am, on my very own blog, making an attempt to set the record straight.
This all started when we were trying to organize a private event to honor John Dawson's life and legacy. It would have been pretty meaningless without the involvement of the New Riders of the Purple Sage but scheduling was a nightmare so we gave up and added a "Tribute" to the beginning of the NRPS show at the Mystic Theatre. It was still a private event but we requested (and required) that most attendees also purchase a ticket to the show because it was our way of thanking the venue for giving us the extra time at the place and frankly, a guest list of 100 people in a venue that holds maybe 4 times that would have been a financial disaster for the band. All was going fairly well until one of the invitees, not recognizing my name, decided I was trying to make money off of John's death (huh? This cost me money and I was happy to do it, would have paid more if we could have worked it out)and posted that publicly.
Concurrent to that now fateful Faceboook post (which was copied and pasted all over the internet), I had a discussion with an old friend who, while participating in the event big time, told me in a very public place that he didn't think our friend who had passed was a very nice guy. That is all I am going to say about that except that his words were far harsher. I got upset and decided my 40 year friendship with this person was over. This didn't go over well with the aforementioned, attempted, former friend (we have since resolved the issue and are friends again) but I was completely inflamed for about a month and could not calm down. And let's just throw in here the cancer meds and the surgeries (most recent surgery was October 21, right in the middleof all of this), have left me a little off my game (and some would say, off my rocker) and caused some distinct shifts in my personality. I never suffered bullshit easily and nowadays, I really cannot and will not tolerate it.
Imagine my surprise when, let's just call him AAFF for aforementioned attempted former friend came up to me in another public place where I was waiting to say hello to someone else, as if nothing had happened. I merely reiterated what I had told him previously, that I had nothing to say to him and did not wish to talk to him ever again and waved him away. I did not yell, I did not scream, but I was firm. He caught the look in my eyes that said "I am not kidding" and walked away, very hurt (this is where you can say, "AWWWWWWWWWWWWW"). I did have an inkling of how hurtful I was being but in that moment I felt I was right and did not care whether or not I hurt someone else's feelings. That was very, very wrong of me and one of my friends, who was with me at the time, said she thought I had been very cruel. I didn't see that then but in retrospect, she was right.
Fast forward a few weeks. Another mutual friend jumped in to the mix, called and spoke with me and encouraged me to resolve the issue. I made a call to AAFF and left a message of contrition (or as contrite as I can be, which isn't all that contrite).
The tribute started out a little rocky but by the end of the evening, AAFF and I had resolved the problem and were once again friends. He told me never to apologize for being straight with him and that he appreciated my honesty.
That was the end of any problem between the two of us but some outsiders, who witnessed my little "I'm not speaking to him..." brief speech, decided I was self-aggrandizing and had deliberately attempted to belittle AAFF in front of his fans and friends (so not true) (and believe me, had I wanted to do that, really wanted to do that, I have more than enough true ammunition). Anyway, idiot outsider started another public flogging of me, and of course, he/she/it does not sign his/her/its name to anything because he/she/it is a complete coward.
Cowardly Outsider, or CO as I am naming this person, stirred up a pile of shit by misinterpreting a post I made to yet another mutual friend who asked me to find out if AAFF had received a present she sent him quite awhile back since she never received an acknowledgement. I inquired of AAFF, got his response, and posted it, referring, jokingly, to AAFF with something along the line of "you know how it is with these legends in their owns minds, busy, busy, busy..." and that started the whole thing going yet again. Hey you know people, get a life of your own. And a sense of humor. AAFF is not GOD.
This all started when we were trying to organize a private event to honor John Dawson's life and legacy. It would have been pretty meaningless without the involvement of the New Riders of the Purple Sage but scheduling was a nightmare so we gave up and added a "Tribute" to the beginning of the NRPS show at the Mystic Theatre. It was still a private event but we requested (and required) that most attendees also purchase a ticket to the show because it was our way of thanking the venue for giving us the extra time at the place and frankly, a guest list of 100 people in a venue that holds maybe 4 times that would have been a financial disaster for the band. All was going fairly well until one of the invitees, not recognizing my name, decided I was trying to make money off of John's death (huh? This cost me money and I was happy to do it, would have paid more if we could have worked it out)and posted that publicly.
Concurrent to that now fateful Faceboook post (which was copied and pasted all over the internet), I had a discussion with an old friend who, while participating in the event big time, told me in a very public place that he didn't think our friend who had passed was a very nice guy. That is all I am going to say about that except that his words were far harsher. I got upset and decided my 40 year friendship with this person was over. This didn't go over well with the aforementioned, attempted, former friend (we have since resolved the issue and are friends again) but I was completely inflamed for about a month and could not calm down. And let's just throw in here the cancer meds and the surgeries (most recent surgery was October 21, right in the middleof all of this), have left me a little off my game (and some would say, off my rocker) and caused some distinct shifts in my personality. I never suffered bullshit easily and nowadays, I really cannot and will not tolerate it.
Imagine my surprise when, let's just call him AAFF for aforementioned attempted former friend came up to me in another public place where I was waiting to say hello to someone else, as if nothing had happened. I merely reiterated what I had told him previously, that I had nothing to say to him and did not wish to talk to him ever again and waved him away. I did not yell, I did not scream, but I was firm. He caught the look in my eyes that said "I am not kidding" and walked away, very hurt (this is where you can say, "AWWWWWWWWWWWWW"). I did have an inkling of how hurtful I was being but in that moment I felt I was right and did not care whether or not I hurt someone else's feelings. That was very, very wrong of me and one of my friends, who was with me at the time, said she thought I had been very cruel. I didn't see that then but in retrospect, she was right.
Fast forward a few weeks. Another mutual friend jumped in to the mix, called and spoke with me and encouraged me to resolve the issue. I made a call to AAFF and left a message of contrition (or as contrite as I can be, which isn't all that contrite).
The tribute started out a little rocky but by the end of the evening, AAFF and I had resolved the problem and were once again friends. He told me never to apologize for being straight with him and that he appreciated my honesty.
That was the end of any problem between the two of us but some outsiders, who witnessed my little "I'm not speaking to him..." brief speech, decided I was self-aggrandizing and had deliberately attempted to belittle AAFF in front of his fans and friends (so not true) (and believe me, had I wanted to do that, really wanted to do that, I have more than enough true ammunition). Anyway, idiot outsider started another public flogging of me, and of course, he/she/it does not sign his/her/its name to anything because he/she/it is a complete coward.
Cowardly Outsider, or CO as I am naming this person, stirred up a pile of shit by misinterpreting a post I made to yet another mutual friend who asked me to find out if AAFF had received a present she sent him quite awhile back since she never received an acknowledgement. I inquired of AAFF, got his response, and posted it, referring, jokingly, to AAFF with something along the line of "you know how it is with these legends in their owns minds, busy, busy, busy..." and that started the whole thing going yet again. Hey you know people, get a life of your own. And a sense of humor. AAFF is not GOD.
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