Janis Joplin/Big Brother 1966 S.F. Hells Angels Dance CGC-Graded 9.4 (AOR-2.247)....

Description

JANIS JOPLIN AT HER OFFBEAT, GRITTY BEST

Janis Joplin/Big Brother 1966 S.F. Hells Angels Dance CGC-Graded 9.4 (AOR-2.247). An original first-printing concert poster for Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, plus the Merry Pranksters, playing a Hells Angels dance at Sokol Hall in San Francisco, CA on Saturday night, November 12, 1966. The poster has been graded to 9.4 Near Mint condition by the Certified Guaranty Company (CGC).

This poster has always owed its popularity to the jeans-jacket motif created by the graphic artist Gut (real name Allen Turk). Obviously the top half of the poster might be what a biker's "colors" look like on the back. This theme is carried all the way down to the jeans-like venue strip at the bottom. "$1.00 Per Head" continues the renegade ethos, as does "No Minors"... Hells Angels parties were not for kiddies or the faint of heart.

It was only one month after this that Big Brother & the Holding Company went into a Los Angeles recording studio and recorded their self-titled debut album for Mainstream Records. Measures 14 1/8" x 20" and grades to 9.4 Near Mint condition. COA from Heritage Auctions.

Literature: See Grushkin, Paul, The Art of Rock: Posters from Presley to Punk, Abbeville Press, New York, 1987, p.207 (illus.).

More Information: According to the web site for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (art.famsf.org), the designer of this poster, Allen "Gut" Turk, was "a Hells Angel, the past president of the San Bernardino Hells Angels chapter, the manager of the rock group Blue Cheer in the late 1960's, one of the Merry Pranksters led by Ken Kesey, and for a time, an owner of Joynt Venture, a head shop in San Francisco's Mission District." Mr. Turk passed away in 2018.


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