SANTA ROSA, Calif. -- Nick Gravenites, the blues singer and guitarist for The Electric Flag and songwriter for Janis Joplin, has died, his family announced. He was 85. “I regret to inform all of you ...

Why did the girl sing the blues? Why does anyone sing the blues, but, specifically, why this girl from a Texas oil refinery town? From what buffet of insults and taunts did her soul have to dine to ...

Gravenites is best known for writing “Born in Chicago,” the opening song on the first Paul Butterfield Blues Band album in 1965, which exposed White rock and pop audiences to Black electric blues. As ...

Janis Joplin and the Kozmic Blues Band were not the first Tanglewood contemporary performers, but they were the first real ...

As a gig-musical, it is a five-star belter, with more talent onstage than is decent. Not just the singer who plays Janis, Mary Bridget Davies (Sharon Sexton will cover at some performances) but a trio ...

They don’t teach kids about the “old, weird America” in school. Though rooted in fierce independence, its study would scare the goody two-shoes and give the mischievous a head start down the crooked ...

In the 55 years since her death, there has not been another voice like Janis Joplin's. The future rock icon was born on Jan. 19, 1943, in Port Arthur, Texas, and two decades later, she moved to San ...

9-28-68: Big Brother and the Holding Company were scheduled to play a sold-out show at downtown's Community Concourse. The afternoon before the show, their singer Janis Joplin announced to the press ...

In the green room before Los Lobos’ Memorial Day concert at West Marin’s Rancho Nicasio, everyone’s attention was focused on the band’s guest for the day: 84-year-old bluesman Nick Gravenites. Wearing ...