Friday, June 22, 2007

Jefferson Airplane


Jefferson Airplane was the first of the San Francisco psychedelic rock groups of the 1960s, primarily the vehicle of guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and vocalist Grace Slick. Initially, the female vocalist for the group was Signe Anderson, but due to a strong family commitment she was replaced by Grace Slick in 1966, originally from The Great Society. They then took a rather controversial path, adopting both the drug-taking hippie ethos and the left-wing, antiwar political movement of "hippie" counterculture. Undeniably Grace a big part of the band's commercial success, "White Rabbit" (written by her) and "Somebody to Love" (written by Grace's brother-in-law, Great Society guitarist Darby Slick) being the two most recognized tunes.

Jefferson Airplane didn't "officially" break up, but mutated into other configurations in Hot Tuna and Jefferson Starship (sometimes commonly referred to as just "Starship") in the 70- and 80's, before reuniting for an album and tour in 1989.

Famous for hosting open house parties in the mid 80's the Airplane maintained an older Victorian Home adjacent to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The parties were Friday and Saturday night gatherings of locals and visitors, a good time was had by all.

The group was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

The psychedelic aspect of their music can be symbolized by the movie "fear and loathing in las vegas" featuring johnny depp, some of jefferson airplane songs are in the OST.

As of 2007 Jefferson Starship continues to tour with a lineup of Paul Kantner (vocals, guitar), David Freiberg (vocals, bass, keyboards), Diana Mangano (vocals), Slick Aguilar (lead guitar), Chris Smith (keyboards) and Prairie Prince (drums). The band sometimes features guest musicians such as Balin, Gould, Gorman and former Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten. Jefferson Starship is scheduled to play three songs on NBC’s The Today Show on June 30, 2007.

My all-time favorite is "Don't You Want Somebody To Love" which sounds a fresh today as it did when it was in the Top 10. Find out more at: http://www.jeffersonairplane.com/

Research info provided by: www.wikipedia.org


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

One of the things that makes the Airplance classic is that Rickenbacker guitar California sound. There's a good post about Paul Kantner and his Rickenbacker at RickRedux.com.