Jefferson Airplane
(Check back tomorrow for "Jefferson Starship)
(Read all about Jefferson Airplane after the video)
Jefferson Airplane was a rock band based in San Francisco, California, who pioneered psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to achieve international commercial success. They were headliners at the three most famous American rock festivals of the 1960s—Monterey (1967), Woodstock (1969) and Altamont (1969)—and the first Isle of Wight Festival (1968) [1] in England. Their 1967 break-out album Surrealistic Pillow ranks on the short list of the most significant recordings of the "Summer of Love". Two songs from that album, "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit", are among Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."
The "classic" lineup of Jefferson Airplane, from October 1966 to February 1970, was Marty Balin (vocals), Paul Kantner (guitar, vocals), Grace Slick (vocals), Jorma Kaukonen (lead guitar, vocals), Jack Casady (bass), and Spencer Dryden (drums). The group broke up in 1972 and split into two bands: Hot Tuna and Jefferson Starship. Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and was presented with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.
History
1965–1966: Formation
In 1962, 20-year-old Marty Balin recorded two singles for Challenge Records, neither of which were successful. Balin then joined a folk group called The Town Criers from 1963 to 1964. After the Beatles-led British invasion of 1964, Balin was inspired by the success of the Byrds and Simon & Garfunkel in merging folk with rock to form a group in 1965 that would follow that lead.[1] With a group of investors, Balin purchased a former pizza parlor on Fillmore Street,[2] which he converted to a music club, the Matrix, and began searching for members for his group.[3]
Balin met folk musician Paul Kantner
at another local club, the Drinking Gourd. Kantner, a native San
Franciscan, had started out performing on the Bay Area folk circuit in
the early 1960s, alongside fellow folkies Jerry Garcia, David Crosby and Janis Joplin. Kantner has cited folk groups like the Kingston Trio and the Weavers
as strong early influences. He briefly moved to Los Angeles,
California, in 1964 to work in a folk duo with future Airplane/Starship
member David Freiberg (who subsequently joined Quicksilver Messenger Service).
Balin and Kantner then recruited other musicians to form the house band at the Matrix. After hearing female vocalist Signe Toly Anderson
at the Drinking Gourd, Balin invited her to be the group's co-lead
singer. Anderson sang with the band for a year and performed on their
first album before departing in October 1966 after the birth of her
first child.
Kantner next recruited an old friend, blues guitarist Jorma Kaukonen. Originally from Washington, D.C., Kaukonen had moved to California in the early 1960s and met Kantner while at Santa Clara University
in 1962. Kaukonen was invited to jam with the new band and although
initially reluctant to join he was won over after playing his guitar
through a tape delay device that was part of the sound system used by Ken Kesey for his Acid Test parties. Kaukonen came up with the band's name, based on the name of a friend's dog.[4] A 2007 press release quoted Kaukonen as saying:
I had this friend [Steve Talbot] in Berkeley who came up with funny names for people," explains Kaukonen. "His name for me was Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane (for blues pioneer Blind Lemon Jefferson). When the guys were looking for band names and nobody could come up with something, I remember saying, 'You want a silly band name? I got a silly band name for you!'
Drummer Jerry Peloquin and acoustic bassist Bob Harvey completed the
original lineup. The group made its first public appearance as Jefferson
Airplane at the opening night of The Matrix on August 13, 1965. The
band expanded from its folk roots, drawing inspiration from the Beatles, the Byrds and the Lovin' Spoonful, and gradually developed a more pop-oriented electric sound.
A few weeks after the group was formed, Jerry Peloquin departed, in
part because of his disdain for the others' drug use. Although he was
not a drummer, singer-guitarist Skip Spence (who later founded Moby Grape)
was then invited to replace Peloquin. In October 1965, after the other
members decided that Bob Harvey's bass playing was not up to par, he was
replaced by guitarist-bassist Jack Casady, an old friend of Kaukonen from Washington, D.C., Casady played his first gig with the Airplane at a college concert in Berkeley, California, two weeks after he arrived in San Francisco.
The group's performing skills improved rapidly and they soon gained a
strong following in and around San Francisco, aided by reviews from
veteran music journalist Ralph J. Gleason, the jazz critic of the San Francisco Chronicle
who, after seeing them at the Matrix in late 1965, proclaimed them "one
of the best bands ever". Gleason's support raised the band's profile
considerably, and within three months their manager Matthew Katz was
fielding offers from recording companies, although they had yet to
perform outside the Bay Area.
Two significant early concerts featuring the Airplane were held in late 1965. The first was the historic dance at the Longshoremen's Hall
in San Francisco on October 16, 1965, the first of many "happenings" in
the Bay Area, where Gleason first saw them perform. At this concert
they were supported by a local folk-rock group, the Great Society, which featured Grace Slick as lead singer and it was here that Kantner met Slick for the first time.[6] A few weeks later, on November 6, they headlined a benefit concert for the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the first of many promotions by rising Bay Area entrepreneur Bill Graham, who later became the band's manager. In November 1965, Jefferson Airplane signed a recording contract with RCA Victor, which included an unheard-of advance of US$25,000. Prior to this, they had recorded a demo for Columbia Records
of "The Other Side Of This Life" with Bob Harvey on bass, which was
immediately rejected by the label. On December 10, 1965, the Airplane
played at the first Bill Graham-promoted show at the Fillmore Auditorium, supported by the Great Society and others. The Airplane also appeared at numerous Family Dog shows promoted by Chet Helms at the Avalon Ballroom.[6]
The group's first single was Balin's "It's No Secret" (a tune he wrote with Otis Redding
in mind); the B-side was "Runnin' Round The World", the song that led
to the band's first clash with RCA Victor, over the lyric "The nights
I've spent with you have been fantastic trips". After their debut LP was
completed in March 1966, Skip Spence quit the band and he was
eventually replaced by Spencer Dryden,
who played his first show with the Airplane at the Berkeley Folk
Festival on July 4, 1966. Dryden had previously played with a Los
Angeles group called the Ashes, who later became the Peanut Butter Conspiracy.
Original manager Matthew Katz was fired in August, sparking a long-running legal battle that continued until 1987, and Balin's friend and roommate Bill Thompson
was installed as road manager and temporary band manager. It was
Thompson, a friend and staunch supporter of the band and a former Chronicle
staffer, who had convinced reviewers Ralph Gleason and John Wasserman
to see the band at the Longshoreman's Hall. Thanks to Gleason's
influence, Thompson was able to book the group for appearances at the
Berkeley Folk Festival and at the Monterey Jazz Festival.
The group's debut LP Jefferson Airplane Takes Off was released in September 1966. The folk-music-influenced album included John D. Loudermilk's "Tobacco Road" and Dino Valente's "Let's Get Together",[6]
as well as original ballads "It's No Secret" and "Come Up the Years".
Despite the fact that the group had neither performed outside the Bay
Area nor appeared on TV, the album garnered considerable attention in
the United States and sold well enough to earn a gold record award. RCA
initially pressed only 15,000 copies, but it sold more than 10,000 in
San Francisco alone, prompting the label to reprint it. For the
re-pressing, the company deleted "Runnin' Round This World" (which had
appeared on early mono pressings), because executives objected to the
word "trip" in the lyrics. For similar reasons, RCA Victor substituted
altered versions for two other tracks: "Let Me In", changing the line "I
gotta get in/you know where" to "you shut your door/now it ain't fair."
In the same song, they also switched the lyric "Don't tell me you want
money" to "Don't tell me it ain't funny". "Run Around" was also edited,
changing the line "flowers that sway as you lay under me" to "flowers
that sway as you stay here by me". The original pressings of the LP
featuring "Runnin' 'Round The World" and the uncensored versions of "Let
Me In" and "Run Around" are now worth thousands of dollars on the
collectors' market.
Signe Anderson gave birth to her daughter in May 1966, and in October
she announced her departure from the band. Her final gig with the
Airplane took place at the Fillmore on October 15, 1966.
1966–1967: Commercial breakthrough
The following night, Anderson's replacement Grace Slick
made her first appearance. Slick was already well known to the band—she
had attended the Airplane's debut gig at the Matrix in 1965 and her
previous group, the Great Society, had often supported the Airplane in
concert.
Slick's recruitment proved pivotal to the Airplane's commercial breakthrough—she possessed a powerful and supple contralto
voice that complemented Balin's and was well-suited to the group's
amplified psychedelic music, and, a former model, her good looks and
stage presence greatly enhanced the group's live impact. “White Rabbit”
was written by Grace Slick while she was still with The Great Society.
The first album Slick recorded with Jefferson Airplane was Surrealistic Pillow,
and Slick provided two songs from her previous group: her own "White
Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love", written by her brother-in-law Darby
Slick. Both songs became breakout successes for Jefferson Airplane and
have ever since been associated with that band.[7]
The Great Society had recorded an early version of "Somebody to Love"
(under the title "Someone to Love") as the B-side of their only single,
"Free Advice", produced by Sylvester Stewart (soon to become famous as Sly Stone).
It reportedly took more than 50 takes to achieve a satisfactory
rendition. The Great Society decided to split up in late 1966 and played
its last show on September 11. Soon after, Slick was asked to join
Jefferson Airplane by Jack Casady (whose musicianship was a major
influence on her decision) and her Great Society contract was bought out
for $750.[7]
In December 1966, Jefferson Airplane was featured in a Newsweek
article about the booming San Francisco music scene, one of the first
in a welter of similar media reports that prompted a massive influx of
young people to the city and contributed to the commercialization of the
hippie culture.
Around the beginning of 1967 Bill Graham
took over from Bill Thompson as manager. In January the group made
their first visit to the East Coast. On January 14, alongside the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane headlined the "Human Be-In", the famous all-day "happening" in Golden Gate Park, one of the key events leading up to the "Summer of Love".
During this period the band gained their first international recognition when rising British pop star Donovan,
who saw them during his stint on the U.S. West Coast in early 1966,
mentioned the Airplane in his song "The Fat Angel", which subsequently
appeared on his Sunshine Superman LP.
The group's second LP, Surrealistic Pillow, recorded in Los Angeles with producer Rick Jarrard
in only thirteen days at a cost of $8,000, launched the Airplane to
international fame. Released in February 1967, the LP entered the Billboard 200
album chart on March 25 and remained there for over a year, peaking at
No. 3. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.[8] The name "Surrealistic Pillow" was suggested by the album's "shadow producer", Jerry Garcia,
when he mentioned that, as a whole, the album sounded "as Surrealistic
as a pillow is soft". Although RCA Victor would not acknowledge Garcia's
considerable contributions to the album with a "Producer" credit, he is
listed in the album's credits as "spiritual advisor".
In addition to the group's two best-known tracks, "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love",
the album featured "My Best Friend" by former drummer Skip Spence,
Balin's driving blues-rock songs "Plastic Fantastic Lover" and "3/5 of a
Mile in 10 Seconds", and the atmospheric Balin-Kantner ballad "Today". A reminder of their earlier folk incarnation was Kaukonen's solo acoustic guitar tour de force, "Embryonic Journey" (his first composition), which referenced contemporary acoustic guitar masters such as John Fahey and helped to establish the popular genre exemplified by acoustic guitarist Leo Kottke.
The first single from the album, Spence's "My Best Friend", failed to
chart, but the next two singles rocketed the group to prominence. Both
"Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" became major U.S. hits, the former
reaching No. 5 and the latter No. 8 on the Billboard singles chart. By
late 1967 the Airplane were national and international stars and had
become one of the hottest groups in America. Grace Slick biographer
Barbara Rowes called the album "a declaration of independence from the
establishment [-] What Airplane originated was a romanticism for the electronic age. Unlike the highly homogenized harmonies of the Beach Boys,
Airplane never strived for a synthesis of its divergent sensibilities.
Through [-] each song, there remain strains of the individual styles of
the musicians [creating] unusual breadth and original interplay within
each structure".[9]
This phase of the Airplane's career peaked with their famous performance at the Monterey International Pop Festival
in June 1967. Monterey showcased leading bands from several major music
"scenes" including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the United
Kingdom, and the resulting TV and film coverage gave national (and
international) exposure to groups that had previously had only regional
fame. Two songs from the Airplane's set were subsequently included in
the D. A. Pennebaker film documentary of the event.
The Airplane also benefited greatly from appearances on national network TV shows such as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on NBC and The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS. The Airplane's famous appearance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
performing "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" was videotaped in
color and augmented by developments in video techniques. It has been
frequently re-screened and is notable for its pioneering use of the Chroma key process to simulate the Airplane's psychedelic light show.[10]
1967–1970: Heavier sound and improvisation
After Surrealistic Pillow,
the group's music underwent a significant transformation. Key
influences on the group's new direction were the popularity and success
of Jimi Hendrix and the British supergroup Cream,
which prompted the Airplane (like many other groups) to adopt a
"heavier" sound and to place a greater emphasis on improvisation. The
band's third LP, After Bathing at Baxter's,
was released on November 27, 1967, and eventually peaked in the charts
at No. 17. Its famous cover, drawn by renowned artist and cartoonist Ron Cobb, depicts a Heath Robinson-inspired flying machine (constructed around an idealised version of a typical Haight-Ashbury district house) soaring above the chaos of American commercial culture.
Recorded over a period of more than four months, with little input from nominal producer Al Schmitt, the new album demonstrated the group's growing engagement with psychedelic rock. Where the previous LP had consisted entirely of "standard-length" pop songs, Baxter's was dominated by long multi-part suites, while "A Small Package of Value Will Come To You Shortly" was a musique concrete style audio collage inspired by Frank Zappa's avant-garde work on side four of Freak Out! Baxter's
also marked the ascendency of Kantner and Slick as the band's chief
composers and the concurrent decline in the influence and involvement of
founder Marty Balin. The other members, gravitating toward a
harder-edged style, openly criticized Balin for his ballad-oriented
compositions. Balin was also reportedly becoming increasingly
disenchanted with the "star trips" and inflated egos generated by the
band's runaway commercial success.
Baxter's also marked the end of the Airplane's brief run of
success on the singles chart. While both "White Rabbit" and "Somebody To
Love" were U.S. Top 10 hits, "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil",
peaked at No. 43 and "Watch Her Ride" stalled at No. 61, though both
were listed as being in the top forty in Cash Box.
None of the band's subsequent singles made it into the Top 40 and
several did not chart at all. AM Top 40 radio, in particular, became
wary of a group that had scored a hit with a song that contained
thinly-veiled drug references and whose singles were often deemed too
controversial, so Jefferson Airplane never again enjoyed the kind of
widespread radio support they would have needed to score more Top Ten
hits.[11]
In February 1968, manager Bill Graham was fired after Grace Slick delivered an "either he goes or I go" ultimatum.[12]
Bill Thompson took over as permanent manager and set about
consolidating the group's financial security, establishing Icebag Corp.
to oversee the band's publishing interests and purchasing a 20-room
mansion at 2400 Fulton Street across from Golden Gate Park near the Haight-Ashbury, which became the band's office and communal residence. Bill Laudner was hired as road manager.
In mid-1968, the group was photographed for a Life
magazine story on "The New Rock", appearing on the cover of the June
28, 1968 edition. They undertook their first major tour of Europe in
August–September 1968, playing alongside the Doors in the Netherlands, England, Germany, and Sweden.[12] In a notorious incident at a concert in Amsterdam, while the Airplane was performing "Plastic Fantastic Lover", Doors singer Jim Morrison,
under the influence of a combination of drugs fans had given him,
appeared on stage and began dancing "like a pinwheel". As the group
played faster and faster, Morrison spun around wildly until he finally
fell senseless on the stage at Marty Balin's feet. Morrison was unable
to perform his set with the Doors and was hospitalized while keyboardist
Ray Manzarek was forced to sing all the vocals.[13] It was also during this tour that Slick and Morrison allegedly engaged in a brief sexual relationship, described in Somebody To Love?, Slick's 1998 autobiography.
Jefferson Airplane's fourth LP, Crown of Creation (released in September 1968), was a commercial success, peaking at No. 6 on the album chart. Grace Slick's "Lather", which opens the album, is said to be about her affair with drummer Spencer Dryden and his 30th birthday.[12] "Triad", a David Crosby piece,[6] had been rejected by the Byrds because they deemed its subject matter (a ménage à trois)
to be too "hot". Slick's searing sexual and social-commentary anthem
"Greasy Heart" was released as a single in March 1968. A few tracks
recorded for the LP were left off the album but later included as bonus
tracks, including the Grace Slick/Frank Zappa collaboration "Would You Like A Snack?"
The Airplane's appearance on The Smothers Brothers in the fall of that year caused a minor stir when Grace Slick appeared in blackface (she claimed she simply wanted to wear all the makeup she saw in her dressing room) and raised her fist in the Black Panther Party's salute after singing "Crown of Creation".
In November 1968 the band played House at Pooneil Corners at a New York City rooftop. It was filmed for D. A. Pennebaker movie 1 PM. The concert was stopped by the police just like the Beatles' famous rooftop concert about two months later, as depicted in the 1970 documentary Let It Be.
In February 1969 RCA released the live album Bless Its Pointed Little Head, which was culled from late 1968 live concert performances at the Fillmore West on October 24–26 and the Fillmore East on November 28–30. It became the Airplane's fourth Top 20 album, peaking at No. 17.
In April 1969, sessions began for their next album, Volunteers, using new 16-track facilities at the Wally Heider
Studio in San Francisco. This proved to be the last album by the
"classic" lineup of the group. The album's release was delayed when the
band ran into conflict with their label over the content of songs such
as "We Can Be Together" and "Uncle Sam Blues" and the planned title of
the album, Volunteers of Amerika. "Volunteers of Amerika" is a corruption of the Volunteers of America
charity, the term being in vogue in 1969 as an ironic expression of
dissatisfaction with America; however, the charity objected so the name
was shortened to Volunteers.[14]
In August 1969, a few days after the band headlined at a free concert in New York's Central Park, they performed in what Grace Slick called an early "morning maniac music" slot at the Woodstock festival, for which the group was joined by noted British session keyboard player Nicky Hopkins.
When interviewed about Woodstock by Jeff Tamarkin in 1992, Paul Kantner
still recalled it with fondness, whereas Grace Slick and Spencer Dryden
had less than rosy memories.[15]
Immediately after their Woodstock performance, the band appeared on The Dick Cavett Show and played a few songs. Other guests on that same episode were David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Joni Mitchell.[16] The new album was finally released in the United States in November 1969 with the title shortened to Volunteers. The song "Uncle Sam Blues" did not appear but was later released on the eponymous Hot Tuna album. Volunteers
continued the Airplane's run of Top 20 LPs, peaking at No. 13 and going
gold early in 1970. It was their most political venture, showcasing the
group's vocal opposition to the Vietnam War and documenting their reaction to the changing political atmosphere in the United States. The best-known tracks include "Volunteers," "We Can Be Together," "Good Shepherd," and the post-apocalyptic "Wooden Ships," which Paul Kantner co-wrote with David Crosby and Stephen Stills, and which Crosby, Stills & Nash also recorded on their debut album.
RCA raised objections to the phrase "up against the wall,
motherfucker" in the lyrics of Kantner's "We Can Be Together", but the
group managed to prevent it from being censored on the album, pointing
out that RCA had already allowed the offending word to be included on
the cast album of the rock musical Hair.
In addition, the song had the line "in order to survive, we steal,
cheat, lie, forge, fuck, hide, and deal", which was also kept on the
album (and which they sang on broadcast TV during their appearance on
the Dick Cavett show). For the single versions of "We Can Be Together,"
"motherfucker" was changed to a long, drawn out "Ma," and "fuck" was
changed to "fred". These edits were reflected in the printed lyrics that
accompanied the album.
In December, the Airplane played at the Altamont Free Concert at Altamont Speedway in California, thus becoming the only band to perform at all three of the iconic rock festivals of the 1960s—Altamont, Monterey Pop, and Woodstock. Headlined by the Rolling Stones, the concert was marred by violence. Marty Balin was knocked out during a scuffle with Hells Angels members who had been hired to act as "security".[17] The event became notorious for the "Gimme Shelter Incident": the fatal stabbing of black teenager Meredith Hunter
in front of the stage by Hells Angels "guards" after he pulled out a
revolver during the Stones' performance. This incident was the
centerpiece of the documentary film Gimme Shelter.
1970–1972: Decline and dissolution
Spencer Dryden was dismissed from the band in February 1970 by a unanimous vote of the other members.[18] He felt burned out by four years on the "acid
merry-go-round" and was deeply disillusioned by the events of Altamont,
which, he later recalled, "did not look like a bunch of happy hippies
in streaming colors. It looked more like sepia-toned Hieronymus Bosch". He took time off and later returned to music in 1972 as a drummer for New Riders of the Purple Sage. Dryden was replaced by Joey Covington, an L.A. musician who had played with Hot Tuna
throughout 1969 and had already performed select engagements with the
Airplane throughout 1969 as a second drummer; the band's line-up was
later augmented by violinist Papa John Creach in October 1970.
Touring continued throughout 1970, but the group's only new recording
that year was the single "Have You Seen the Saucers?" b/w "Mexico". "Mexico" was an attack on President Richard Nixon's Operation Intercept,
which had been implemented to curtail the flow of marijuana into the
United States. "Have You Seen the Saucers" marked the beginning of a
science-fiction theme that Kantner explored in Blows Against the Empire,
his first solo album, released in 1970, and with many of his songs in
the 1970s and 1980s. Jefferson Airplane ended 1970 with their
traditional Thanksgiving Day engagement at the Fillmore East (the final
performance of the short-lived
Balin/Casady/Covington/Creach/Kantner/Kaukonen/Slick septet) and the
release of their first compilation album, The Worst of Jefferson Airplane, which continued their unbroken run of chart success, reaching No. 12 on the Billboard album chart.
1971 was a year of major upheaval for Jefferson Airplane. Grace Slick
and Paul Kantner had begun a relationship during 1970, and on January
25, 1971, their daughter China Wing Kantner ("Wing" was Slick's maiden name) was born.[19][20]
Slick's divorce from her first husband had come through shortly before
this, but she and Kantner agreed that they did not wish to marry.
In March 1971, Marty Balin officially left the band after
disassociating himself from the group following the fall 1970 tour.
Although he had remained part of the band's live performances after the
band's creative direction shifted from the brooding love songs that he
specialized in, an emerging drinking problem—compounded by the evolution
of the polarized Kantner/Slick and Kaukonen/Casady cliques—had finally
left him the odd man out. Following the traumatic death of his friend
Janis Joplin, he began to pursue a healthier lifestyle; Balin's study of
yoga and
abstention from drugs and alcohol further distanced him from the other
members of the group, whose drug intake continued unabated. This further
complicated the recording of their long-overdue follow-up to Volunteers.
Balin had recently completed several new songs, including "Emergency"
and the elongated R&B-infused "You Wear Your Dresses Too Short",
both of which later appeared on archival releases.
On May 13, 1971, Grace Slick was injured in a near-fatal automobile crash when her car slammed into a wall in a tunnel near the Golden Gate Bridge
in San Francisco. The accident happened while she was drag racing with
Jorma Kaukonen; both were driving at over 100 miles per hour, and
Kaukonen claims that he "saved her life" by pulling her from the car.[21]
Slick's recuperation took a few months, forcing the Airplane to curtail
their concert and touring commitments. In the meantime, Slick recorded a
comic song about this incident, "Never Argue With A German If You're
Tired", which appeared on Bark.
The band still managed studio dates during 1971. Their next LP was Bark, which was issued in September 1971 with cover art depicting a dead fish wrapped in an A&P-style
grocery bag. It was both the final album owed to RCA under the band's
existing contract and the inaugural release on the band's Grunt Records
vanity label. Manager Bill Thompson had struck a deal with RCA to allow
Jefferson Airplane to run Grunt Records as they saw fit, but still use
RCA's distribution.
The single "Pretty As You Feel", excerpted from a longer jam on the
LP with lead vocals by Joey Covington, its composer, was the last
Jefferson Airplane single to place on the US singles chart, peaking at
No. 60. The album rose to No. 11, higher than Volunteers.
Even after the departure of Balin, major creative and personal
divisions persisted between Slick and Kantner on the one side and
Kaukonen and Casady on the other. (Jorma Kaukonen's song "Third Week In
The Chelsea," from Bark, chronicles the thoughts he himself was
having about leaving the band.) These problems were exacerbated by
escalating drug use—especially Slick's alcoholism—which caused the
Airplane to become increasingly unreliable in their live commitments and
led to some chaotic situations at concerts.[citation needed]
The band held together long enough to record one more LP, entitled Long John Silver,
begun in April 1972 and released in July. By this time the various
members were also engaged with their various solo projects. Hot Tuna,
for instance, had released a second (electric) LP during 1971, First Pull Up, Then Pull Down, which proved even more successful than its predecessor. Though still a member of the band at the commencement of the Long John Silver sessions, Joey Covington had by this time immersed himself in the production of his own album with Peter Kaukonen and Black Kangaroo on Grunt; he consequently left the band during the recording of the album and was replaced by John Barbata (formerly of the Turtles and CSNY); who ultimately played on most of the album. The Long John Silver
LP is notable for its cover, which folded out into a humidor, which the
inner photo depicted as storing cigars (which may have been filled with
marijuana). The album rose to No. 20.
With the addition of Kantner's old friend David Freiberg on vocals, Jefferson Airplane began a tour to promote the Long John Silver
LP in the summer of 1972, their first concerts in over a year. This
tour included a major free concert in Central Park that drew more than
50,000 people. They returned to the West Coast in September, playing
concerts in San Diego, Hollywood, and Albuquerque. The tour culminated in two shows at the Winterland Ballroom
in San Francisco (September 21–22), both of which were recorded. At the
end of the second show the group was joined on stage by Marty Balin,
who sang lead vocals on "Volunteers" and the final song, "You Wear Your
Dresses Too Short". Though no official announcement was ever released,
the Winterland shows were the last live performances by Jefferson
Airplane[22] until their reunion in 1989. Jefferson Airplane's second live album, Thirty Seconds Over Winterland, was released in April 1973.
Reunion and recent events
In
1989, the classic line-up of Jefferson Airplane reunited (with the
exception of drummer Spencer Dryden) for a tour and album. The self-titled album was released by Epic[23] to modest sales but the accompanying tour was considered a success.
In 1996, Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
with Balin, Casady, Dryden, Kantner and Kaukonen attending as well as
performing. Grace Slick was absent, as she was unable to travel for
medical reasons.[24]
1998 saw the production and broadcast of a very popular episode of the hit VH1 documentary television series Behind The Music about Jefferson Airplane, directed by Bob Sarles.
Band members Grace Slick, Marty Balin, Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen,
Jack Casady and Spencer Dryden were all interviewed for the episode,
along with David Crosby, longtime Airplane manager Bill Thompson and
China Kantner, daughter of Paul Kantner and Grace Slick. [25]
In 2004, the film Fly Jefferson Airplane (directed by Bob Sarles) was released on DVD.[26] It covers the years 1965–1972 and includes then-recent interviews with band members and thirteen complete songs.
Spencer Dryden died of colon cancer on January 11, 2005. [27]
Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady performed a set at the 2015 Lockn' Festival to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Jefferson Airplane. They were joined by G. E. Smith, Rachael Price, Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams.[28] In 2016, Jefferson Airplane was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.[29]
Both Signe Anderson and Paul Kantner died on January 28, 2016.[30]
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