Big Brother - Woman at Doorway

Big Brother and the Holding Company were at the height of their powers in early 1968, shortly before recording Cheap Thrills, which would become their seminal album and hold the #1 spot in the album charts for 8 weeks later in the year. The band – and Janis Joplin – had gathered momentum following their breakout performance at the Monterey Pop Festival 7 months earlier and they played about 135 concerts total in 1968.

The Electric Flag had also performed at Monterey and included Michael Bloomfield, Barry Goldberg and drummer Buddy Miles. Around that time they had written most of the music for the Peter Fonda/Dennis Hopper movie, The Trip, and at the time of these shows were about to release their most important album, the aptly titled, “A Long Time Comin’” The Electric Flag was managed by Albert Grossman, who also managed Big Brother and Bob Dylan. The Youngbloods had released the single, “Get Together,” in mid-1967 but it only reached #62 on the charts. Re-released in 1969, it jumped into the top 5. Ultimate Spinach was based in Boston and made three psychedelic rock albums that, while obscure, hold up decently today.

A poster artist during San Francisco’s psychedelic Sixties, Jack Hatfield designed two posters for concerts sponsored by Chet Helms of the Family Dog at the Avalon Ballroom in 1967 and two more for Bill Graham’s concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium in 1968. The latter two posters used photographs by Louis Sozzi. Hatfield also created a poster for the Magic Mountain Festival sponsored by radio station KFRC at the Mountain Theater on Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County during the middle of the 1967 Summer of Love.