Amid the drugs, the hippies and the psychedelia, San Francisco became the centre
of the counter-culture revolution of the mid-1960s with a host of new bands
rising from the bohemian Haight-Ashbury district. Alongside Grateful Dead and
Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother And The Holding Company were at the heart of the
scene, stomping out bluesy, funky jams as the house band at the Avalon Ballroom
nightclub. Recruiting unknown Texas soul singer Janis Joplin in 1966, the band
were inspired by her charismatic personality and her unusually raw, gravelly
howling voice and became major int...