Interview/Spotlight - James Gurley
James Gurley (December 22, 1939 – December 20, 2009) was an American musician. He is best known as the guitar player of Big Brother and the Holding Company, a psychedelic/acid rock band from San Francisco which was fronted by singer Janis Joplin from 1966 to 1968. James Gurley was born in Detroit, Michigan on December 22, 1939. As a boy he sometimes worked with his father who was a stunt car driver. Occasionally this work entailed performing as a human hood ornament with a helmet as his father sped through a flaming plywood wall. The stunt was popular with crowds but not with James - particularly not the day he knocked out his two front teeth and singed his hair to the point where he had to shave his head completely. At the age of nineteen James took up the guitar and began practicing long hours while listening to old Lightnin' Hopkins records. He never had a guitar lesson, preferring to learn by ear. He spent four years at Detroit's Catholic Brothers of the Holy Cross, studyin...
