Replacing Janis Joplin: The Toughest Job in Rock
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Sam Andrew of Big Brother & the Holding Company: Interview
Frank Mastropolo
Replacing an iconic vocalist may be rock’s most challenging job. But a singer’s departure, though devastating, does not always mean the end of a band’s touring and recording career. Big Brother & the Holding Company, fronted by Janis Joplin, was one of the most popular bands to go on after losing their vocalist; Joplin left Big Brother for a solo career in 1969.
To find out about the pressures that come with replacing the lead of a hugely successful band, we spoke with Sam Andrew, founding member of Big Brother, in 2013. Andrew, who died in 2015, talked about Joplin’s substitute, Kathi McDonald.
Musicians and fans mourned the loss of McDonald in October 2012. Her session work included recordings by the Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker, and Dave Mason. One of McDonald’s earliest gigs was backing Ike and Tina Turner in the Ikettes; two decades of performing with the legendary Long John Baldry cemented McDonald’s reputation as a premiere blues belter.
But perhaps McDonald’s most daunting task came in 1969, when Janis Joplin left Big Brother. McDonald was the Bay Area band’s first choice to take Joplin’s place. Though it was a requirement of the job, McDonald said she used to hate to perform Joplin’s songs.
“I finally made my peace with it. I realized what a pathetic life she had,” McDonald explained. “She had a lot of heartbreak.”
Today, Big Brother & the Holding Company, with Peter Albin and Dave Getz from the Janis Joplin era, includes Darby Gould, Tom Finch, Kate Thompson, Eileen Humphreys, and David Aguilar.
When did you first hear Kathi McDonald sing?
Sam Andrew: These three beautiful girls, Marlene and Vicki and Rebecca, stopped me on Haight St. one day and they said, “Do you want to be Kathi McDonald’s birthday present?” And I said, “Yeah, sure, who is that?”
And so I followed them home and I still know them all today, they’re all really great people. And there was Kathi. It was her birthday and I said, “They say you’re a singer, why don’t you sing something?” And so she started singing and she was phenomenal. She was so great.
I said, “You ought to come sing with Big Brother some time.” This was when we were still with Janis.
When Janis left, what happened to Big Brother?
We were so blown away and saddened that Janis left the band when we had a number one record. We were devastated. I went with Janis and we did the Kozmic Blues Band together because I loved her and she’s the one I related to the most in the band. Big Brother completely fell apart and then about 6 to 9 months later, Janis fired me.
So I came back to Marin and asked Big Brother if they wanted to reform and they said yes. We had Kathi McDonald and Nick Gravenites singing vocals.
Were any other singers considered when you were reforming Big Brother?
No, because Nick and Kathi were both so great. I wish Janis hadn’t have left Big Brother, but I really wish I wouldn’t have because I would have said, “Hey, Janis Joplin has left us and we’re having an audition and we want to hear everyone who wants to sing with Big Brother & the Holding Company.”
And a thousand people would have shown up. And probably two of them would have been the best singers in the United States. But we just didn’t have the presence of mind to do that.
Did Kathi mind performing songs that Janis had made famous?
Yes, she did. Kathi said, “I don’t sound like Janis Joplin, I sound like Kathi McDonald.” They were really different singers. Janis was a phenomenon, so was Kathi, but they were really different. But on our set we always had “Piece of My Heart,” “Summertime,” “Ball and Chain.” So she just had to go with it.
Would Kathi put her own stamp on those famous songs?
They had a similar style; they were mining the same territory. Kathi’s a blues/soul singer and that’s what Janis was. In many ways, Janis was aspiring to be what Kathi was. When Janis went on to form Kozmic Blues Band, her idea was to be like Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin, have these horns and a Hammond B3 and all that stuff. Kathi was already there, she’d done all that stuff.
What were the fans’ reactions to Kathi?
I don’t remember anything where people were throwing boots at the stage, you know, “Where’s Janis?” It may have happened but I don’t remember it. Because music is so immediate, if somebody’s doing great, if you show up with a great lead guitar player as we do these days, they’re not going to say, “Oh, he’s not so-and-so.”
People love that playing. Kathi was always great and she made everyone laugh. She was real funny onstage and offstage.
When Janis Joplin first came into Big Brother, we went to the Avalon Ballroom. We did a show with her and I thought it was fantastic, it was great, it was wonderful. But other people in the band will say, “Some of our fans were coming up and saying, ‘Hey, get rid of that chick because I loved the way you guys sounded before.’”
We had a great sound before; it was this experimental progressive rock thing and it was really great. That’s what they were talking about: “Oh, now you’ve hired this woman singer. She’s gonna ruin your band.” I never heard any of that. They say they heard it so I’ll believe them.
People always yearn for the thing that went before that was successful but really, I didn’t hear much of that when Kathi joined. In fact, I didn’t hear any of that.
Why did Kathi eventually leave Big Brother?
It just fell apart, it was more like Big Brother left her. She and I were the last two left carrying on Big Brother. One day we just said, “It’s not working, a lot of the people aren’t coming, plus we’re all strung out on drugs, so why don’t we just quit for awhile?”
Kathi had an immense talent; it was huge. For a long time I said she was the best white blues singer in the world. But every time it came down to a chance where she could hit the big time, she would blow it.
She would be with Columbia executives ready to sign her and there would be a plate of pasta in front of her and she would throw up in it. That’s the only way she could have not made it because she had so much talent.
We played some great music, as good as anything Big Brother ever did, in those last years with Kathi and she was a trouper all the way through. She had a great sense of humor and we laughed a lot. She was alive the whole time, she was really alive.
Frank Mastropolo is the author of Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever and the Greatest Performances series. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.
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