Big Brother: Interview (Part 2) [Side B]

AV: "Piece of My Heart," a composition by Ragovoy-Berns, was your big hit single (#12 nationally) off the album.PA: We really need to give the credit to Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane. I never heard the song until he played it. The original single was by Erma Franklin, Aretha's sister, and it was a real, relaxed version.So we sat down and Big Brotherized it. We didn't have any concept in mind, but it seems everything we-touch turns out different just because we are different musicians. We're not Motown or soul performers and I don't think Janis tried to imitate Erma Franklin's style. Ours was faster and more up-tempo.SA: There was a comment by Elton John in an English book that came out about three years ago dealing with twenty-five years of rock. I didn't like his comment because he really puts us down. He said something to the effect that, "If you ever listen to the Erma Franklin version you'd be hearing the real thing." I really have to dispute that because if I ever run into him then I would tell him, "You never should have done 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' on his cover of the Beatles song." It all has to be done with different styles and different arrangements. In fact, "Piece of My Heart" has been covered twice since we did it, once by Sammy Hagar.

AV: Is that an Echoplex at the end of "Piece of My Heart" where the guitar winds on down?SA: No, it's just my fingers.

AV: "Oh, Sweet Mary" has the same music as "Coo Coo" but different lyrics.PA: We wanted to do another version of "Coo Coo," but we had given publishing rights to Bob Shad. Since we wanted to avoid giving away any more money, we changed the title, the lyrics, and even credited it to different authors.

AV: One of the key phrases in "Oh, Sweet Mary" is "Why is it so hard to breathe in the air?" What is the significance behind this line?SA: That is a dominant theme in the life and philosophy of Janis. The song starts out as, "Oh, sweet Mary, child of confusion" which is the outlook of one who is confused and frightened by everything around her. Janis would very often befriend people, no matter which sex, who were in that condition. Basically, she wanted to take care of people. The phrase "breathing in the air" is a poetic musical interlude, but I'm not sure of the meaning.

AV: Is the title "Oh, Sweet Mary" a reference to the Virgin Mary?SA: No, that must be your Jesuit training! Janis didn't know any virgin Mary's!

AV: "Ball and Chain" is a classic song. Did Janis bring this song by Willie Mae Thornton to the band?PA: We heard Big Mama Thornton at The Other or some small jazz club in San Francico around 1967. We went backstage and told her we would like to do the song. I don't know whether someone asked her for the lyrics, but she didn't give anything to us other than saying to go ahead and sing it. James or Sam probably scribbled the lyrics down, but the way we arranged and played it is entirely different. James, who played lead guitar, and Janis entirely transformed the song.

AV: There are delays in the beginning and also at the end where Janis yells, "Hit it!" How did this get incorporated into the song?SA: I think that is a sense of humor by James and Janis. It's almost theatrical the way James and Janis hold it up. It just happened spontaneously.

AV: What about the church music after "Ball and Chain" at the end of the record?PA: Bill Graham always played music after the last song was completed. He usually played "Greensleeves" or some classical piece. "Ball and Chain" was an entirely live performance recorded at Winterland and not at the Fillmore.SA: During the early days of the Fillmore, Graham even used to have string quartets play in between the band's sets.

AV: Was the photograph on the inside cover from the Fillmore?SA: It was taken at the Fillmore East.

AV: There must be a lot of live tape material that was done on the band. Is there a substantial body of tape that we might expect to be released someday?PA: We did a lot of live recording in the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, but all the live material is stored in the CBS vaults in New York.

AV: It seems mind boggling that with a #1 album on the charts for eight weeks, that Janis would leave (December, 1968) the band. Why did this happen?SA: Some people think it was Columbia who suggested it, but I think it was more Albert Grossman's idea.PA: I can't hear him saying, "Janis, leave the band." I can hear him suggesting she might work better with some other musicians and putting her into a quandry. It wasn't only Grossman, but other friends and people in the business who may have had a hand in it.Part of the problem was that when we were on the road all the reviews focused on Janis. Also, nine out of ten reviews gave the band a bad review --- but this was the straight press, never the underground papers.SA: I think we forget the fact that Janis was such a great singer ---the premiere white blues singer --- that she was naturally better than the band. Of course, who could you put her with? In fact, this was subsequently proven, that neither the Kosmic Blues Band (with whom I was a member) nor the Full-Tilt Boogie Band came anywhere near Big Brother, although the individual musicians were as good.PA: The other question was what concept of music would be appropriate for her. Janis later said, "Oh, if I knew you guys wouldn't mind adding a horn section or a keyboard player, then I would have stuck with you." That was one of the concepts that she was thinking about when, in fact, it wasn't appropriate. She was compared immediately to Aretha Franklin when she got a big band.SA: There is also the factor of losing her audience which may have been driven away when she switched styles. By adding horns she diluted her sound and made it more conventional.Perhaps an analogy can be made to the Rolling Stones. People were always telling Mick Jagger that Keith Richards was not that good a guitar player, yet when Mick made a solo LP it didn't do that well. It was the whole thing about the Rolling Stones that made them a great band. I think the same can be said about Big Brother & the Holding Company.

AV: What happened after Janis told the band she was leaving?SA: Everybody got angry when she said she was leaving. I told her she needed a guitar player and I suggested she call Jerry Miller of Moby Grape who is a sensational guitar player. I think she appreciated the fact I didn't come down on her and make her feel any worse. Janis asked me later to join her new band.PA: James went on a sabbatical because he didn't want to play. David and I, however, both wanted to keep playing using the Big Brother name. So we got a couple guys from New Riders of the Purple Sage and this group only lasted two or three months before David and I left to play for Country Joe & the Fish on an European tour.

AV: The first album by Big Brother without Janis came out in 1970 and was entitled Be a Brother.PA: We added David Shallock, a local Marin County player, who later played with the Sons of Champlin. Nick Gravenites, who had played with Electric Flag, came in to do vocals. Essentially, we still had a contract with Columbia to do two albums with Big Brother which they honored, but we ended up paying money back to them because we had already used some of the advance money they had given us.

AV: The inside cover of How Hard It Is, the last Big Brother album in 1971, shows a picture of Janis even though she wasn't with the band.PA: Janis didn't sing on How Hard It Is, but she did sing on one track from Be A Brother.

AV: How Hard It Is has a very different sound compared to your other albums. There is also a strange tune called "Promise Her Anything, But Give Her Arpeggio."PA: It's a very eclectic record. The "Arpeggio" cut is based on a French melody that David Shallock had heard when he was in France.I think "Black Widow Spider," a song by Sam and released as a single, is one of the best cuts. The song was also referred to by some feminists in a magazine.Sam had returned from the Kosmic Blues Band to play on How Hard It Is which came out after Janis had died.

AV: What role did drugs play with Big Brother?PA: I generally like to downplay it, but I think it is always brought up and is somewhat overblown. Yes, drugs are used by rock bands, but I think there are a lot of drugs everywhere. Everybody knows who Keith Richard is, but nobody cares about some anonymous ex-Vietnam vet who's strung out in the gutter and who is just as important as a human being.I really think one of the bad things about drugs is that it has taken not only the lives of a lot of musicians, but also how much creativity have we lost from those who are dead and even those who are still alive?MB: I was reading a book recently which dealt with the psychology of the musician who is extra sensitive and therefore is able to express what everybody else is feeling and put it into words and music and sell it. Yet because we are extra sensitive, and due to the pressure put upon us, drugs come into play.For example, being on the road night after night, you may want to go to sleep but it's hard to come down right after a gig. I can see where the artist would take drugs to make them sleep or wake up when they need to. It's pretty tough coming back to your room at 3:00 A.M., trying to wind down from the gig, and then getting up at 6:3O A.M. to catch a plane to the next city.I also think the artist is often very insecure. They need the audience just as much as the audience needs them and so the artist also wants to do their best.PA: Counter-culture music came from counter-culture people and a lot of these people did drugs.

AV: There is a legendary San Francisco figure by the name of Stanley Owsley III (his great-grandfather was governor of Kentucky) who was famous for providing acid. References to him appear on a Blue Cheer's album and in Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.PA: He used to be aligned with the Grateful Dead and later he lived in Australia. He got heavily involved with jewelry and crafts when he came back to America.Owsley was a manufacturer of LSD, when it was legal. He used to go by the nickname of "Bear" because he used to produce the acid in an old house over in Berkeley. There used to be a sign of an old company outside the house that said Bear-something-or- the-other and people started calling him Bear.He was also a good sound man and he has some good recordings of Big Brother.

AV: What happened to Seth Morgan who at one time was engaged to Janis?PA: He is the son of a poet from New York. The last I heard was that Seth was working on a novel or a book of poetry.

AV: Where were you when Janis died (October 4, 1970 at the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood) and what was the reaction of the band?PA: I was at home watching a W.C. Fields' movie when Dave Richards, our former equipment manager, called and told me the news. I think Dave heard about it from John Cooke who had done some carpentry work on her new house and was very close to her.I was taken back by it, but I knew it was coming. Anyone who takes those kinds of drugs (heroin) should realize that eventually one might take a little too much.This is just conjecture, but Jim Marshall (photographer) and Dave Richards have the same opinion as I do. We think that whoever gave her the heroin thought he was doing her a favor by giving her pure heroin instead of the cut heroin she normally got. The inquest basically concurred when it ruled it was an accidental overdose.

AV: What are your thoughts about the films Janis (1974) and The Rose (1979) with the later movie starring Bette Midler?PA: Generally speaking, I liked the movie Janis, yet I thought it could have contained a lot more documented material of Janis' mother. There was some footage that showed Janis stoned, but Janis was stoned a lot anyway and yet it wasn't used. What we end up with is seeing "Ball and Chain" three times.The Rose is a fairly obvious story of Janis. Even though the film does not state it is a biography of Janis, the story line is very close and somewhat exaggerated.A

V: What are your opinions of the books about Janis entitled Buried Alive (by Myra Friedman) and Going Down With Janis (by Peggy Caserta)?PA: To be very honest, I've only read parts of them. I read very little of Going Down With Janis (which gives Caserta's lesbian side of the story) and what I read was such a turn-off it made me not want to read it. Some of the things are true, but where David Getz really likes the book, I think it sucks. Most of it, in my opinion, is incorrect. Peggy Caserta was a drug addict who was doing that book to get more money for her arm.Myra Friedman's book, on the other hand, is very complete and well researched.

AV: Big Brother played in Port Arthur the day before last night's concert in Houston. What was your reception like in Janis' home town?MB: The people in Port Arthur were very nice to me and very supportive. Port Arthur understands that Janis is gone and that I can't take her place and I was expecting just the opposite. We had a very enthusiastic crowd and it was a godsend.

AV: What are your thoughts about being in Big Brother?MB: I love being in Big Brother. The thing that is really important is that everybody understands that I'm not trying to take her place. Bands lose members all the time and they hire new ones. The only difference is that I got a new job and I am replacing a legend. If anybody comes to a concert expecting Janis they will be disappointed. If they're not expecting Janis they will have a good time.

AV: I don't know what I was expecting when I saw you last night, but your singing was incredible. I also think you have a wonderful personality on stage and you were able to convey that to the audience. I think the audience fell in love with you and would like to see you record and tour with Big Brother.MB: Thank you.PA: It would be nice to put everything together again. Big Brother & the Holding Company, along with Janis, created an atmosphere of great expectations with Cheap Thrills. Perhaps we can still achieve those expectations with Michel.