The Jefferson Airplane

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The 1960s

The 1960s

The Jefferson Airplane played their first concert at the Matrix Club on August 13th, 1965 in San Francisco. The lineup was Marty Balin the singer, Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen on Guitar, vocalist Signe Toly Anderson, drummer Jerry Peloquin, and acoustic bassist Bob Harvey. The bands major influence was the Beatles, The Byrds and The Lovin Spoonful. Peloquin was a seasoned musician whose disdain for the others' drug use was a factor in his departure just a few weeks after the group began its career. Skip Spence then took the drum throne. The band gradually developed a more electric sound that led to Harvey's replacement by Kaukonen's childhood friend, Jack Casady, in October 1965. Later that year, they signed with RCA Victor and recorded an album for release the following year called Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. In 1966, Spence was replaced by jazz drummer Spencer Dryden and Anderson by singer Grace Slick, formerly of another San Francisco group, The Great Society. Slick brought with her a powerful and supple contralto voice, well-suited to the group's amplified psychedelic music, as well as a number of important songs, including "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love". The group sprang from local to national renown with their appearance at the epochal Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967. Monterey showcased leading bands from several major music "scenes" including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and England and the resulting TV and film coverage gave national (and international) exposure to groups that had previously had only regional fame. All these bands were also greatly assisted by appearances on nationally syndicated TV shows such The Ed Sullivan Show, which were videotaped in color and augmented by recent developments in video techniques. Membership remained stable until 1970, by which time they had recorded five more albums. The first of these, Surrealistic Pillow (1967), included two classic tracks, "White Rabbit" (inspired by the psychedelic drug LSD, then extremely popular in San Francisco, Maurice Ravel's "Bolero", and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland), and the rousing anthem "Somebody to Love", as well as a reminder of their earlier folk incarnation, Kaukonen's solo acoustic guitar tour de force, "Embryonic Journey", which referenced contemporary acoustic guitar masters such as John Fahey and helped to establish the popular genre exemplified by acoustic guitarist Leo Kottke. The album was extremely successful, reaching #3 in the US album charts, and alongside The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, it is widely regarded as one of the seminal albums of the so-called "Summer of Love". The name Surrealistic Pillow was suggested by the 'shadow' producer of the album, Jerry Garcia, when he mentioned that, as a whole, the album sounded 'as Surrealistic as a pillow'. The record company would not allow Garcia's considerable contributions to the album to garner him a 'Producer' credit, so Garcia is listed in the album's credits as 'spiritual advisor'. The band delved deeper into acid rock with 1967's After Bathing at Baxter's, an album of long multi-part suites, which demonstrated the group's proficiency with psychedelic rock. Its famous cover features a whimsical re-imagining of the group's Haight-Ashbury house as a Heath Robinson-inspired flying machine, drawn by artist and cartoonist Ron Cobb. Crown of Creation (1968) was a transitional record, more structured than its predecessor. The album's notable tracks include Grace Slick's Lather, said to be about drummer Spencer Dryden, with whom she was rumored to be having an affair, "Triad", a David Crosby song that had been rejected by his group, the Byrds, because they deemed its subject matter, a ménage à trois, to be objectionable, and the searing sex and drug anthem "Greasy Heart." In 1968, Jefferson Airplane unleashed Bless Its Pointed Little Head, which captured their live concert sound at the Fillmore and the Fillmore East. In the aftermath of the demise of the San Francisco scene, the band released Volunteers (1969), their most political venture. The title track, "Volunteers", "We Can Be Together", "Good Shepherd", and the post-apocalyptic "Wooden Ships" were all highlights. In 1968, the group toured Europe with fellow psych-rockers The Doors, and appeared in the Netherlands, England, Belgium, Germany and Sweden. One infamous incident involving Jim Morrison was recalled by Grace Slick and Paul Kantner in an interview: While the Airplane were on stage performing one of their faster songs, "Plastic Fantastic Lover", the unpredictable Morrison appeared on stage and began dancing. Jorma and the rest of the group began playing faster and faster until Jim spun wildly and fell to the ground. Morrison was unable to perform his set with the Doors and Ray Manzarek was forced to sing all the vocals. The band performed in an early 'morning maniac music' slot at the Woodstock festival in August 1969. In December that year, they played at the infamous Altamont Free Concert held at the Altamont Speedway in California. The concert, which was headlined by The Rolling Stones, was marred by crowd violence, as Marty Balin was knocked out during a scuffle with Hells Angels members who had been hired to act as "security". The event became notorious for the now-famous "Gimme Shelter Incident", due to the fatal stabbing of black teenager Meredith Hunter in front of the stage by Hells Angels "guards" after allegedly pulling out a revolver during the Stones' performance Although the band released its first greatest-hits album, The Worst of Jefferson Airplane, in 1970, its only new songs that year were two tracks available only on the single, "Mexico" b/w "Have You Seen the Saucers". The A-side was a staunch criticism of President Richard Nixon's Operation Intercept, which had been implemented to curtail the flow of marijuana into the United States, while the B-side marked the beginning of a science-fiction obsession that Kantner would explore with his music over the rest of the decade. Balin chose to leave the band shortly after the release of the single. Shortly thereafter, Kantner and Slick fired Dryden from Airplane, dismissing him as an "embarrassing idiot". The group continued on without them, releasing Bark (whose cover featured a dead fish wrapped in an A&P-style grocery bag) in 1971, and Long John Silver (whose cover folded into a humidor, presumably for the storage of marijuana) in 1972. Both albums were released on the band's own label, Grunt, which would continue to be distributed by RCA. The group replaced Dryden with drummer Joey Covington (who also provided the vocals on the 1971 single, "Pretty as You Feel", from Bark). The legendary Afro-American blues fiddler Papa John Creach (1917-1994) also joined the group in the early seventies. During this time, Kaukonen and Casady began a side project they named Hot Tuna, in which the two of them, often supported by a changing group of supporting musicians, began exploring traditional blues. They released the acoustic Hot Tuna in 1970, and the electric First Pull Up-Then Pull Down in 1971. As time went by, Kaukonen and Casady began devoting more of their attention to Hot Tuna and less to the Airplane. (In the song, "Third Week In The Chelsea", from Bark, Kaukonen details the thoughts he is having about leaving the band.) Jefferson Airplane's second live album, Thirty Seconds Over Winterland (1973), is now best remembered for its cover art of a squadron of flying toasters, which the band later alleged to have spawned the famous "After Dark" computer screensaver design. In 1974, a collection of leftovers (singles and B-sides, including "Mexico" and "Have You Seen The Saucers", as well as other non-album material) was released as Early Flight, the last official Jefferson Airplane album.


Grace Slick - Vocals