(August-September 1966) – Big Brother and the Holding Company played at Mother Blues, a small club on Wells Street, Chicago. They didn’t have a record out yet, we’d never heard any of their songs, and they had a new singer no one ever heard of.
Some of the band members needed a place to stay. Accommodations were made for one of the musicians at a crash pad I was staying at on North Avenue, about two blocks from Mother Blues. I’m not sure he actually stayed there, but in return several of us were allowed in to see the San Francisco band, because of course we couldn’t afford tickets.
The club was full of tourists as usual, except for our table of hippie street people. The singer gave us a little wave and at intermission came over to say hello. Sounded like her name was Janice.
Month: May 2020
Cleveland Poetry, 1966
On my third or fourth pass through Cleveland in 1966, d. a. levy brought me along to an open-mic poetry reading he’d organized at The Gate on July 1. The Plain Dealer wrote a full-page story on the event, including my photo and a poem of mine from my booklet Paracutes that d. a. levy had published. The two other poems I read were also published, one in Carl Woidek’s Sum, and the other in levy’s compilation, Poets at the Gate. That one came to the attention of poet Walter Lowenfels, who published it in a 1969 Doubleday anthology, The Writing on the Wall.
d. a. levy 
Cleveland Plain Dealer 
Paracutes 
Sum 
Poets at the Gate 
Walter Lowenfels. Doubleday 1969.
(accessed January 19, 2018). Poets At The Gate Vol. 1, No. 4. Mimeo, July 1966. http://verdantpress.com/checklist/d-a-levy/periodicals-edited-and-published/ (accessed January 16, 2018). The Writing on the Wall. Hardcover, Doubleday, July 1969. ISBN 0385017448. https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=0385017448&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3A0385017448 (accessed July 1, 2018).