Big Brother and the Holding Company
The guitarist James Gurley of Big Brother and the Holding Company died at the age of 69. James was known for his inventive psychedelic rock playing style.
“I would say all of my guitar-playing contemporaries strived to have their own sound, but I think James was a huge influence on all of us because he wasn’t afraid to break the boundaries of conventional music,” Barry Melton of Country Joe and the Fish. “What one thinks of that genre of music is that place that it takes you to where the beat is just assumed and the whole thing is transported to another place, and James is the guy who started that.”
“Some of the innovations were the result of the fact he came from kind of a progressive bluegrass school of music where weirdness was encouraged,” said Peter Albin, the group’s bass player.