Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane, 1960s San Francisco psychedelic/social-protest band that spawned Jefferson Starship, Hot Tuna, and other permutations. Membership: Marty Balin (real name, Martyn Jerel Buchwald), voc. (b. Cincinnati, Ohio, Jan. 30, 1943); Signe Tôle, voc. (b. Seattle, Wash., Sept. 15, 1941); Paul Kantner, rhythm gtr., voc. (b. San Francisco, March 12, 1942); Jorma Kaukonen, lead gtr. (b. Washington, D.C., Dec. 23, 1940); John “Jack” Casady, bs. (b.Washington, D.C., April 13, 1944); and Alexander “Skip” Spence, drm. (b. Windsor, Ontario, Canada, April 18, 1946). Tole and Spence left in 1966, to be replaced by Grace Slick (real name, Wing) (b. Chicago, Oct. 30, 1939) and Spencer Dryden (b. N.Y., April 7, 1943). Later members included drummers Joe E. Covington and John Barbata, and electric violinist “Papa” John Creach (b. Beaver Falls, Penn., May 28, 1917; d. Los Angeles, Feb. 22, 1994).hot tuna: membership: Jorma Kaukonen, gtr., and Jack Casady, bs. jefferson starship: membership: Paul Kantner, gtr., voc.; Grace Slick, voc.; “Papa” John Creach, vln.; David Freiberg, kybd., bs., voc. (b. Boston, Aug. 24, 1938); Craig Chaquico, gtr. (b. Sacramento, Calif., Sept. 26, 1954); Pete Sears, kybd., voc.; and John Barbata, drm. Marty Balin, voc., joined in 1975. By 1979, The Jefferson Starship comprised Mickey Thomas, voc. (b. Cairo, Ga., Dec. 3, 1949); Paul Kantner, David Freiberg, Craig Chaquico, Pete Sears, and drummer Aynsley Dunbar. STARSHIP: Membership: Grace Slick, Mickey Thomas, Craig Chaquico, Pete Sears, and drummer Donny Baldwin.

Marty Balin recorded for Challenge Records in 1962 and performed with the folk group The Town Criers in L.A. in 1964. In San Francisco in 1965, intent on reopening a closed club, Balin assembled a group of musicians, including guitarists Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen and vocalist Signe Tole, to perform at the club. Paul Kantner had been living in L.A. with David Crosby and David Freiberg before returning to the Bay Area. Kaukonen, who had accompanied Janis Joplin locally around 1963, met Kantner in Santa Cruz. Kantner later met Balin while performing on 12-string guitar and banjo at The Drinking Gourd. Named The Jefferson Airplane, the group debuted at The Matrix on Aug. 13, 1965, performing a blend of rock and folk music. The group’s original rhythm section was soon replaced by Alexander “Skip” Spence, a rhythm guitarist converted to drummer, and bassist Jack Casady, a childhood friend of Kaukonen’s. On Dec. 10, 1965, The Jefferson Airplane performed at the inaugural concert at the Fillmore Auditorium, run by Bill Graham.

Signed to RCA Records, thus becoming the first of many Bay Area bands to secure a major label recording contract, The Jefferson Airplane recorded their debut album in Hollywood. Dominated by Marty Balin’s songwriting and smooth rich voice, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off featured the distinctive vocal harmonies of Balin, Kantner, and Signe Anderson. The modest-selling album contained an early version of the “hippie” anthem “Let’s Get Together,” and Balin’s dynamic love song “It’s No Secret.” Spence left the group in May 1966 to form Moby Grape and Anderson (now married) left in October to have a baby. Drummer Spencer Dryden and vocalist Grace Slick were recruited as replacements. Grace Slick, a former model, had been a member of the recently dissolved Great Society, which had been performing locally since 1964. The Great Society also included Slick’s drummer-husband Jerry Slick and his brother Darby Slick. Recordings made by The Great Society for Columbia were eventually issued in 1968, following the success of The Jefferson Airplane.

Surrealistic Pillow, Grace Slick’s first album with The Jefferson Airplane, contained two songs she had performed with The Great Society, Darby Slick’s “Somebody to Love” and her own “White Rabbit.” Both became smash pop hits for The Jefferson Airplane in 1967 and the album effectively launched the “San Francisco sound.” It also included two beautiful romantic ballads by Balin, “Comin’ Back to Me” and “Today” (coauthored with Kantner), as well as Balin’s frenetic “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds” and surreal “Plastic Fantastic Lover.” Slick’s piercing soprano voice, more rough and powerful than Anderson’s, complemented Balin’s high sensual tenor, and her flamboyant stage demeanor soon made her the visual and musical focus of The Jefferson Airplane. The group performed at the Monterey International Pop Festival in June and Slick’s presence soon began to overwhelm Balin, as evidenced by After Bathing at Baxter’s. The album contained only one Balin song, “Young Girl Sunday Blues,” coauthored with Kantner. Other inclusions were Kantner’s “The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil” (a moderate hit) and the mellow “Won’t You Try”/“Saturday Afternoon,” Slick’s “Two Heads,” and psychedelic ruminations by Casady and Kaukonen such as “Spare Chaynge.”

Marty Balin contributed more to Crown of Creation, but most attention was directed at Kantner’s title song, Slick’s surreal “Lather” and vitriolic “Greasy Heart,” and David Crosby’s previously unrecorded “Triad.” In the late summer of 1968, The Jefferson Airplane toured Europe for the first time, issuing the live set Bless Its Pointed Little Head in early 1969. They performed at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in August and their next album, Volunteers, was again dominated by Slick and Kantner. Although the standout cut was Balin and Kantner’s radical political title song, the album featured Kantner’s anthemic “We Can Be Together” and David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Paul Kantner’s mystical “Wooden Ships,” a forerunner of the science fiction fantasies that Kantner would soon explore.

A chaotic period of solo and joint projects and personnel changes soon engulfed The Jefferson Airplane. Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady had been performing together as the blues-oriented Hot Tuna since 1969, often opening shows for The Jefferson Airplane. The first of many Hot Tuna albums appeared in mid-1970. Spencer Dryden quit the parent group in early 1970 to help form The New Riders of the Purple Sage, to be replaced by surf drummer Joe E. Covington. In October, at the urging of Covington, black electric violinist “Papa” John Creach joined The Jefferson Airplane, subsequently performing and recording with both The Airplane and Hot Tuna. In December, Blows Against the Empire was released under the name of Paul Kantner and The Jefferson Starship. The first album nominated for the science fiction writers’ Hugo award, the album was recorded by Kantner, Slick, Casady, and Covington, with the assistance of Jerry Garcia, David Crosby, Graham Nash, David Freiberg, and Jorma’s brother Peter Kaukonen. It featured a number of Kantner science fiction songs, the most accessible of which, “Have You Seen the Stars Tonite,” was cowritten by Crosby. Conspicuously absent was Marty Balin, although he was listed as coauthor of two songs.

By the spring of 1971, Marty Balin had left The Jefferson Airplane. By that August, the group had formed their own independent label, Grunt Records, with manufacturing and distribution handled by RCA. The label’s first album release, Bark, credited to The Jefferson Airplane, yielded a minor hit with Covington’s ditty “Pretty as You Feel.” Other Grunt releases included “Papa” John Creach’s first solo album and Sunfighter, credited to Paul Kantner and Grace Slick. The latter album was recorded with members of The Airplane plus Garcia, Nash, and Crosby, and two members of Grunt Records’ Steelwind, leader Jack Traylor and 16-year-old guitarist Craig Chaquico. By the spring of 1972, Covington had left The Airplane, to be replaced by sessions veteran John Barbata. That summer, The Jefferson Airplane conducted a major American tour with Barbata and bassist- keyboardist-vocalist David Freiberg, a former member of Quicksilver Messenger Service. They played their last engagement at San Francisco’s Winterland in September, and Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen subsequently left the group to pursue Hot Tuna full-time. Subsequent Jefferson Airplane releases included the live set Thirty Seconds over Winterland and Early Flight, recordings from 1965 to 1970 that included Signe Anderson’s vocal on “High Flying Bird.”

During 1973, Marty Balin performed and recorded with the Marin County bar band Bodacious D.F. Their overlooked RCA album featured Balin’s fine lead vocal on leader Vic Smith’s “Drivin’ Me Crazy.” By mid-1974, the parent group had added keyboardist-vocalist Peter Sears and lead guitarist Craig Chaquico for Dragonfly, credited to The Jefferson Starship. The album contained Slick and Sears’s “Hyperdrive” and yielded a minor hit with Slick and Kantner’s “Ride the Tiger.” However, the feature cut was Marty Balin and Paul Kantner’s “Caroline,” with lead vocals by Balin. Balin rejoined The Jefferson Starship for their spring 1975 tour and stayed with the group for more than three years. The group’s best-selling album ever, Red Octopus, yielded a smash hit with “Miracles,” composed and sung by Balin, and exposed the group to a new wide audience. The album also included the minor hit “Play on Love” and “Tumblin’,” written by Balin, Freiberg, and Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. “Papa” John Creach left the group in August 1975, forming his own band in L.A. for an inauspicious recording career. He died there of natural causes on Feb. 22, 1994, at the age of 76.

The Jefferson Starship next recorded Spitfire, which contained “Cruisin”’ (written by Charlie Hickox of Bodacious D.F.) and the major hit “With Your Love,” co-written by Balin. The follow-up, Earth, produced four hit singles, including the near smashes “Count on Me” (written by Jesse Barish) and “Runaway.”

During the summer of 1978, The Jefferson Starship toured Europe for the first time in ten years. However, Grace Slick suddenly became ill before a scheduled appearance in Frankfurt, Germany, in June, and the subsequent cancellation of the concert led to a riot in which virtually all of the group’s equipment was destroyed. Following a poor performance two nights later in Hamburg, Slick returned to the U.S., not to perform with the group again until January 1981. In October 1978, drummer John Barbata was critically injured in a northern Calif, automobile accident. He was replaced by well-traveled English drummer Aynsley Dunbar.

The Jefferson Starship was reconstituted in 1979 with former Elvin Bishop vocalist Mickey Thomas (“Fooled Around and Fell in Love”), Kantner, Freiberg, Chaquico, Sears, and Dunbar. The hard-rock Freedom at Point Zero produced a major hit with “Jane” and the minor hit “Girl with the Hungry Eyes.” After recording two solo albums, Grace Slick returned to The Jefferson Starship in 1981 for the major hits “Find Your Way Back,” “Be My Lady,” and “No Way Out” through 1984. In late 1979, Marty Balin directed the rock musical Rock Justice at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco, later issued as an album on EMI-America. Two years later, he scored a smash hit with “Hearts” and a major hit with “Atlanta Lady” from Balin on EMI- America. He recorded another solo album for the label in 1983.

In 1984, Paul Kantner departed The Jefferson Starship acrimoniously. Through lawsuits, he forced the group to rename itself simply Starship. Soliciting songs from outside writers and pursuing a blatantly commercial direction, The Starship regrouped with Slick, Thomas, Chaquico, Sears, and drummer Donny Baldwin, a member since replacing Aynsley Dunbar in October 1982. The new lineup’s debut album Knee Deep in the Hoopla, yielded four hits, including the top hits “We Built This City,” cowritten by Elton John associate Bernie Taupin, and “Sara.” The group scored another top hit in 1987 with “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” from the movie Mannequin, followed by the near-smash “It’s Not Over (Til It’s Over).” Pete Sears left Starship in 1987, followed by Grace Slick in 1988, and Donny Baldwin in late 1989. Their last major hit came in 1989 with “It’s Not Enough.” Eventually reduced to Craig Chaquico and Mickey Thomas, the group finally disbanded in 1990. Since 1992, Thomas has been performing around the Lake Tahoe region with a set of musicians as Mickey Thomas’s Starship. In the 1990s, Craig Chaquico recorded three instrumental acoustic albums for Higher Octave Music.

Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady persevered as Hot Tuna until 1978. Casady then performed and recorded with the San Francisco heavy-metal band SVT until 1982. He and Kaukonen reunited for a tour as Hot Tuna in 1983, ultimately regrouping in 1986 as an acoustic duo, recording Pair a Dice Found for Epic Records in 1990.

In 1985, Paul Kantner, Marty Balin, and Jack Casady formed a new group with guitarist Slick Aguilar and keyboardist Tim Gorman, among others. Debuting at the reopening of the Fillmore Auditorium in December, the Kantner-Balin-Casady Band recorded a sole album for Arista Records in 1986, scoring a minor hit with “It’s Not You, It’s Not Me.” They completed a national tour in 1987, but disbanded in 1988. The following year, Kantner, Balin, and Casady regrouped with Grace Slick and Jorma Kaukonen as The Jefferson Airplane, recording one abysmal album and conducting one ill-received tour. Kantner and Gorman began performing as Paul Kantner’s Wooden Ships in 1991 and later performed in Paul Kantner’s Jefferson Starship with Jack Casady, “Papa” John Creach, drummer Prairie Prince, and female vocalist Darby Gould. Marty Balin joined the aggregation in 1993. In 1995, Intersound Records issued Deep Space/Virgin Sky for The Jefferson Starship, featuring Kantner, Casady, Balin, and Slick, while Monster-Sounds released Kantner’s spoken word recollection of his years with The Jefferson Airplane, A Guide through the Chaos (A Road to the Passion).

Bibliography

R. J. Gleason, The J. A. and the San Francisco Sound (N.Y., 1969); B. Rowes, Grace Slick: The Biography (Garden City, N.Y., 1980); G. Slick, with A. Cagan, Somebody to Love? A Rock-and-Roll Memoir (N.Y., 1998).

Discography

grace slick and the great society:Conspicuous Only in Its Absence (1968); How It Was—Collector’s Item, Vol. 2 (1968); Collector’s Item (1971); Born to Be Burned (1995). the jefferson airplane:Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (1966/1989); Surrealistic Pillow (1967); After Bathing at Baxter’s (1967); Crown of Creation (1968); Bless Its Pointed Little Head (1969/1989); Volunteers (1969); The Worst of The Jefferson Airplane (1970); Bark (1971); Long John Silver (1972); Thirty Seconds over Winterland (1973); Early Flight (1974); Flight Log (1966–1976) (1977); Time Machine (1986); 2400 Fulton Street—An Anthology (1987); Jefferson Airplane (1989); The Jefferson Airplane Loves You (1992); The Best of The Jefferson Airplane (1993); Live at the Fillmore East (1998). paul kantner and the jefferson starship:Blows Against the Empire (1970). paul kantner and grace slick:Sunfighter (1971). paul kantner, grace slick and david freiberg:Baron von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun (1973). “papa” john creach:Papa John Creach (1971); Filthy (1972); Playing My Fiddle for You (1974); I’m the Fiddle Man (1975); Rock Father (1976); The Cat and the Fiddle (1977); Inphasion (1978). joe e. covington’s fat fandango:Your Heart Is My Heart (1973). hot tuna:

Hot Tuna (1970); Electric Hot Tuna—Recorded Live (“First Pull Up, Then Pull Down”) (1971); Burgers (1972); Phosphorescent Rat (1974); America’s Choice (1975); Yellow Fever (1975); Hoppkorv (1976); Double Dose (1978); Final Vinyl (1979); Splashdown (1986); Historic Hot Tuna (1985); Keep on Truckin’ and Other Hits (1990); Pair a Dice Found (1990); Live at Sweetwater (1992); In a Can (boxed set; 1996); Classic Hot Tuna Acoustic (1996); Classic Electric Hot Tuna (1996); Best (1998); Live at Sweetwater Two (1992). jorma kaukonen with tom hobson:Quah (1974). jorma kaukonen:Jorma (1979); Too Hot to Handle (1986); Magic (1985); Magic Two (1986); Land of Heroes (1995); Too Many Years…(1998). jorma kaukonen and vital parts:Barbeque King (1981). svt:No Regrets (1981). bodacious d.f.:Bodacious D.F.. (1973). marty balin:Rock Justice (original cast; 1980); Balin (1981); Lucky (1983); Balince—A Collection (1990); Freedom Flight (1997). the kbc band (kantner, balin, casady):The KBC Band (1986). grace slick:Manhole (1974); Dreams (1980); Welcome to the Wrecking Ball (1981); Software (1984). the jefferson starship:Dragonfly (1974); Red Octopus (1975); Spitfire (1976); Earth (1978); Gold (1979); Freedom at Point Zero (1979); Modern Times (1981); Winds of Change (1982); Nuclear Furniture (1984); The Jefferson Starship at Their Best (1993); The Collection (1992). paul kantner:The Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra (1983); A Guide Through the Chaos (A Road to the Passion) (1996). the kbc band (kantner, balin, casady):The KBC Band (1986). jefferson starship:Deep Space/Virgin Sky (1995). starship:Knee Deep in the Hoopla (1985); No Protection (1987); Love among the Cannibals (1989); Greatest Hits (Ten Years and Change) (1991). craig chaquico:Acoustic Highway (1993); Acoustic Planet (1994); A Thousand Pictures (1996).

—Brock Helander