Janis Joplin
To concertgoers, Helms' contributions to the music world, like introducing a singer he knew in Texas, Janis Joplin, to the San Francisco music scene, were not always well publicized, but witnessing the final product of Joplin, with her powerful performances was a spectacle. First introduced as a new bandmember of Big Brother, she brought what the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver, and Big Brother did not seem at that point to have - a lead singer to match Jefferson Airplane's Marty Balin and Grace Slick. Joplin later left Big Brother to record solo albums and to rapidly grow in fame, accelerated by her performance at the Monterey Pop Festival.
With Joplin as the lead singer, Helms became the group's manager and introduced them on stage when they made their crucial appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, a performance that marked Joplin's elevation to national prominence.
Creativity was the essence, borrowed from (while re-popularizing) a vast spectrum of musical idioms, including R&B, East Indian, pop, country, bluegrass, and, to an extent, jazz. Music that featured long solos suited the audiences, and was soon used by bands everywhere, in performance and recordings, later becoming a major vehicle for helping launch what would become a new FM radio station music format - the less-commercial "Album-Oriented Rock," in the form of "underground" stations that sprang up coast-to-coast. Exposure on these airwaves further helped the popularity of concert-oriented rock and bands that would play for hours without stopping, as the two-minute hit temporarily was no longer the objective. Songs with long, art-centric solos gained reaffirmation with the increasing commercial success of the radio stations that became part of the new "movement" genre.
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