The Canadian Press: James Gurley, innovative guitarist for Joplin's Big Brother band, dead at 69

The Canadian Press: James Gurley, innovative guitarist for Joplin's Big Brother band, dead at 69:

"LOS ANGELES — James Gurley, the innovative guitarist who helped shape psychedelic rock's multilayered, sometimes thundering sounds as a member of Big Brother and the Holding Company, the band that propelled Janis Joplin to fame, has died of a heart attack. He was 69.

Gurley was pronounced dead Sunday at a Palm Springs hospital, two days before his 70th birthday, the band announced on its website.

One of many prominent guitarists to emerge from San Francisco's psychedelic music scene in the mid-1960s - others included the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, Jefferson Airplane's Jorma Kaukonen and Barry Melton of Country Joe and the Fish - Gurley was hailed by many as the original innovator of the sound.

'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,' Melton said Thursday.

'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.'

Doing things like using an electric vibrator as a slide on his guitar, and picking up amplifiers and shaking them during performances, Gurley created a loud, esoteric sound that was the driving force behind Joplin's voice on such classic songs as 'Ball and Chain,' 'Piece of My Heart' and 'Summertime.'" Sphere: Related Content