Peter Albin may have the usual aches and pains of a guy staring down the barrel of 75 years old, but don’t think the co-founder of Big Brother and the Holding Company is going to be first in line under the “complaint department” sign.
Not when many of his “Summer of Love” compatriots didn’t come close, with the odd coincidence of many dying at 27: Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and the Holding Company’s own former acclaimed vocalist, Janis Joplin,
“I felt lucky if I lived to 30,” Albin said.
Yet, here he is, still playing bass and singing — he was the band’s lead vocalist before Joplin arrived — and, with 79-year-old drummer Dave Getz, carrying on the Big Brother sound with Tim Finch, Darby Gould, David Aguilar, and Kate Russo Thompson.
“We remember the songs and how they go and put out the energy with the ‘younger kids,'” Albin said by phone, eyeing the March 9 show at the Downtown Theatre in Fairfield.
It wasn’t the best of days for Albin, lamenting the passing of Peter Tork of The Monkees.
“They were very friendly with the band,” Albin said, recalling a Big Brother gig in Hollywood when Tork “sat behind my amplifier.”
With Tork living at the time in Marin County and Albin in San Francisco, the two occasionally ran into each other.
“He was one of the friendliest guys,” said Albin, happy to keep the music going and thrilled when Big Brother reunites with contemporaries on “Flower Power” cruises. One is coming up from Florida to San Juan, he said, that includes The Beach Boys, Yard Birds, Starship, Cheech and Chong, Peter Gordon, and Jay and the Americans.
Sure, a lot of it is nostalgia for those psychedelic ’60s, said Albin.
“It’s very interesting, the fond memories” of fans, he said. “Sometimes, young people come up, which is a surprise. They’ll say ‘My parents listened to it.’ And older people come up, ‘It was the soundtrack of my youth.’ A couple of times, veterans come up, ‘You got us through Vietnam’ and they get pretty emotional.”
There are fans who claim they saw Big Brother and the Holding Company at certain venues the band never played, Albin said.
“Maybe they took too many drugs,” he said laughing.
Big Brother and the Holding Co. started in 1965 as an all-male group, but Albin didn’t think that would last.
“I was lead singer and I knew my limitations,” he said. “And most bands had women as lead singers. We wanted to have a female vocalist.”
The late music promoter Chet Helms mentioned that he knew Joplin and that he might be able to “get her up here from Texas,” said Albin.
Joplin was already going through “a tough time” when he joined Big Brother, said Albin.
Still, “it was an immediate fit,” he said. “She could almost sing over our electric guitars.”
There really wasn’t an audition for fronting the band, Albin said.
“She was here one Saturday and a week later we had a gig at the Avalon Ballroom,” he said.
Two months later, the entire band lived together. It was 1967.
“That was a lot of fun,” Albin said. “We played almost every weekend.”
Though iconic rock promoter Bill Graham “wouldn’t hire us” because of his conflict with Helms managing Big Brother, Albin said his relationship with Graham “was good. If there was a problem, I would try and solve it by calling him or going over” to Graham’s office.
The band’s “Live at Winterland ’68” concert was considered one of its best, performed only a few days after the end of an East Coast tour when Big Brother and Joplin performed with Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the “Wake for Martin Luther King, Jr.” concert in New York.
Aside from two 1970 reunions — “I call it the lame duck tour,” said Albin — Joplin’s last performance with Big Brother was at a benefit for Helms in San Francisco on Dec. 1, 1968.
Joplin was encouraged to leave Big Brother and “I don’t think it was bad advice,” Albin said, though insisting “we got a bad rap by reviewers who said we ‘weren’t up to her standards.’ She had a manager telling her she was too big for the band.”
Joplin died Oct. 4, 1970 of a drug and alcohol overdose.
If she were still alive, “she would have bought a bar some place, probably in Alaska,” Albin speculated. “Or down in Brazil. She liked Brazil. She’d be making tropical drinks.”
As for the relationship between Joplin and Albin, “we got along and didn’t get along,” he said.
After Joplin left, Albin and Getz toured with Country Joe and the Fish, with Big Brother reuniting a year later. By 1972, the group ran its course … for 15 years, when they got back together in 1987, much to the chagrin of Albin’s wife.
“She said to give it a rest,” he remembered.
And here they are still playing. For how long? Nobody knows. But Albin will always, hopefully, have the memories. Some day, perhaps for a movie about the band.
“I try and save the really good stories. Some involve Janis, of course,” Albin said.
And when he comes across the vintage 1960s photos?
“I looked pretty good then,” he said. “I had hair and weighed 125 pounds. Now I have a beer belly and I don’t drink much beer.”
Big Brother and the Holding Co. on Saturday, March 9, 8 p.m., Downtown Theatre, 1035 Texas St., Fairfield. Tickets $35-$45. For more, visit downtowntheatre.com. A question and answer period follows the concert.
