Dec 14

Jefferson Airplane

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
 
 
Jefferson Airplane  was an American rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1965.  A pioneer of counterculture-era psychedelic rock, the group was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve international mainstream success.  They performed at the three most famous American rock festivals of the 1960’s — Monterey (1967), Woodstock (1969) and Altamont (1969) — as well as headlining the first Isle of Wight Festival (1968).  Their 1967 record Surrealistic Pillow is regarded as one of the key recordings of the “Summer of Love”.  Two hits from that album, “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit”, are listed in Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
When I was still in high school, I joined a friend at one of his friend’s houses.  I had just started listening to the local college radio station, and my own suggestions of songs (“Triad” by Jefferson Airplane was one) earned me only disdainful looks – well deserved, too, once I started hearing his record collection.  I was starting to gain some recognition as the first high-profile Bob Dylan fan in my age group, but this day showed me that I still had a lot to learn.
 
(December 2009)
 
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The San Francisco sound covers a lot of what used to be called “acid rock” (music designed to be enjoyed while under the influence of LSD):  Country Joe and the Fish, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and the Grateful Dead.  This music is much calmer and more meditative than one might think; there is enough going on during an acid trip without having your head blown off by a lot of bombastic music.
 
(March 2011)
 
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A side man can be a wonderful thing for a musician.  For rock bands without keyboard players (and that was true of many in the 1960’s), Nicky Hopkins was the go-to guy if you wanted a pianist:  He played with everybody from Jefferson Airplane to Jeff Beck Group to Steve Miller Band, and with simply every big British Invasion group:  the Beatles, the Kinks, the Who, and especially the Rolling Stones.  His name appears on dozens of albums from the late 1960’s into the 1980’s.  Hopkins released a couple of solo albums that I have never gotten around to buying, but I sure remember one of the first songs that I heard on college radio at North Carolina State University.  It was “Edward the Mad Shirt Grinder”; Hopkins was officially a member of Quicksilver Messenger Service at that time, and the song was the final track on their album, Shady Grove (1969).  Hopkins wrote it, and it was all his piano work along with a backing band.
 
Another man who stands out in my memory is Papa John Creach. who played electric violin – an instrument that I had never heard of previously – for Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna beginning in 1970; he also stuck it out with Jefferson Starship through the Red Octopus album.  He provided an added dimension to these 1960’s stalwarts, and the presence of that gray hair in the midst of the much younger musicians in the two bands made it clear that you didn’t have to be a kid to rock out.
 
(August 2011)
 
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I spent a good part of last month’s post extolling Shocking Blue and managed to do so without ever mentioning Mariska Veres, the lead singer on “Venus” and nearly all of their songs.  Few rock bands had female lead singers in those days, though there were a few, notably Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane.  Another Dutch band of the same time period, Earth and Fire also had a fine female lead singer, Jerney Kaagman. 
 
(September 2012)
 
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As depicted in Gimme Shelter (I saw the film when it came to theatres in 1970, but I never want to see it again), one audience member, Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by several bikers after he pulled a gun – and yes, someone caught the incident on film.  Lead male singer Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane was knocked out cold by a Hells Angel, and Mick Jagger was punched in the face by an unruly fan shortly after his arrival by helicopter.  It was a perfect storm where simply everything went wrong – the rain and the other privations at Woodstock were nothing compared to what occurred at Altamont.  

 

(June 2013/1)
 
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The early female rock stars got a lot of attention for their bands, with Janis Joplin in Big Brother and the Holding Company and Grace Slick in Jefferson Airplane (and later in Jefferson Starship and Starship) being two of the biggest.  A current Broadway show called A Night with Janis Joplin features Mary Bridget Davies in the title role; Davies is good enough at her job to have previously toured with Joplin’s former band Big Brother and the Holding Company.   

 

(October 2013)

 

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Within two months of its release, Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and the Holding Company was the #1 album in the country on the Billboard charts where it remained for most of the rest of the year.  Surrealistic Pillow from the Jefferson Airplane made it to #3, and the Grateful Dead had a #6 album with In the Dark – but not until 1987. 

 

(February 2014)

 

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David Crosby had been a member of the Byrds but was forced out in late 1967 due to friction with others in the band.  By early 1968, Stephen Stills was one of several musicians who began sailing with Crosby on his yacht and jamming with him.  One of the first fruits of these sessions was the apocalyptic tale “Wooden Ships”, composed by Stills, Crosby, and Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane. 

 

(April 2014)

 

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Drummer Michael Tegza was the only original bandmember left when he reinvented the band H. P. Lovecraft under the name Lovecraft and released an album called Valley of the Moon in 1970.  Joe Viglione, writing for Allmusic says of this album:  “For this 1970 Reprise release, they are dubbed Lovecraft and have abandoned the psychedelic Jefferson Airplane sound for a progressive Crosby, Stills & Nash-meets-Uriah Heep flavor.”  

 

(June 2014)

 

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The final song on “Side 1” of Each One Heard in His Own Language is a rocking rendition of the well-known “Get Together”, though this was before the Youngbloods made a hit of the song in 1969.  The song dates from the early 1960’s and had been recorded by We Five (it was the follow-up to the 1965 hit song “You Were on My Mind” by this band, who as I recall style themselves as the first band in San Francisco to go electric).  Other versions were made by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys, Jefferson Airplane, Hamilton Camp, Carpenters, the Dave Clark Five, H. P. Lovecraft, and many others.  
 
(September 2014)
 
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Writing for Allmusic, Dean McFarlane says of the album:  “From the opening cut, it is fairly apparent why the original album is so sought after – Magic Lantern is as fine a display of American psychedelia as late-’60s albums by It’s a Beautiful Day and Jefferson Airplane.  This will appeal to fans of the fuzzed-out guitar antics of Cream and Blue Cheer.”  There is also a long article in the “Biography” section in Allmusic (this time by Stanton Swihart) about Haymarket Square.  The band name is taken from a place in Chicago where a famous labor riot took place in 1886. 
 
Haymarket Square gained a solid reputation in the local music scene right away; one of their gigs was at the Playboy Mansion.  Allmusic says that they began “sharing stages with important international groups like the Yardbirds and Cream, as well as local favorites H. P. Lovecraft, Saturday’s Children, and the Shadows of Knight”.  Before long, the bandmembers began writing songs similar to those of their idols Jefferson Airplane, particularly Gloria Lambert (who was the sole author of 4 of the 6 songs).  
 
Stanton Swihart writes of Haymarket Square for Allmusic:  “As the music featured on it was initially utilized as live accompaniment and created expressly with that purpose in mind, the album plays much like the records of the [Jefferson] Airplane’s middle, most psychedelic period, as much visceral experiences to fill San Francisco ballrooms as they are objects for home listening, or like early Grateful Dead recordings, intended as soundtracks for Acid Tests and experimental light shows.  But as with the work of those bands, Magic Lantern transcends its intended purpose; in fact, it is one of the stronger – not to mention one of the earliest – slices of acid rock from the era, outstanding in every way, from [John] Kowalski’s expert drumming, to [Gloria] Lambert’s impressive, insistent singing, to the intensely mood-filled, darkly textured original songs.” 
 
(June 2015)
 
Last edited: March 22, 2021