Jefferson Airplane

Welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  I'm Jumpin' John, and in this episode I will discuss the first San Francisco psychedelic rock group to achieve national recognition.  So fasten your seat belts, as we take off, back in time, with the Jefferson Airplane!

All podcasts on the Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast are produced by brothers-in-law Bill Price and "Jumpin' John" McDermott. The Podcast Theme Song, "You Essay", was written by John. It was initially recorded by Bill and John on April 1, 2004 with several revisions since then.
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Transcript

Welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  I'm Jumpin' John, and in this episode I will discuss the first San Francisco psychedelic rock group to achieve national recognition.  So fasten your seat belts, as we take off, back in time, with the Jefferson Airplane!

In 1962 Marty Balin recorded unsuccessfully for Challenge Records and then joined a folk quartet called the Town Criers.  Marty would be inspired by the 1964 British Invasion, and the Beatles in particular, and decided to form his own group.  In 1965 Balin found three investors to convert a Fillmore Street pizza restaurant in San Francisco into a club called the Matrix.  After meeting folk guitarist Paul Kantner at the Drinking Gourd club, he invited him to join him in a new band.  Kantner recommended adding blues guitarist Jorma Kaukonen.  They completed the band with the addition of another Drinking Gourd performer, female singer Signe (seen-ya) Toly Anderson, along with acoustic bass player Bob Harvey and drummer Jerry Peloquin.  The band's name was suggested by Kaukonen.  In reference to the blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, Jorma had been nicknamed "Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane" by a friend.  So the band became Jefferson Airplane.

After rehearsing throughout the summer, the group made its first public appearance as Jefferson Airplane at the opening night of The Matrix on August 13th, 1965.  It didn't take long for the band to undergo personnel changes.  Drummer Peloquin left in September and bassist Harvey was nudged out in October.  Skip Spence, who had no drumming experience, was brought in as drummer, and Harvey was replaced by guitarist-bassist Jack Casady.  Casady was a childhood friend of Kaukonen from Washington, D.C.  In December 1965 the band signed a management contract with Matthew Katz.

Expanding from their folk roots, Jefferson Airplane gradually developed a more pop-oriented electric sound.  Their performance skills improved rapidly.  Aided by the newspaper reviews of local music journalist Ralph Gleason, they soon gained a strong following in and around San Francisco.  Gleason had seen the Airplane performing at October 1965's "happenings" dance at the San Francisco Longshoremen's Hall.  Also performing at that concert was a local folk-rock group called the Great Society, whose lead singer happened to be Grace Slick.  Then, on November 6th, Jefferson Airplane appeared at a benefit concert for the San Francisco Mime Troupe.  That was the first of many promotions by rising Bay Area entrepreneur Bill Graham.  Be sure to check out the Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast episode #96, where I go into greater detail about Bill Graham's career.

In November 1965, after turning down several recording offers from major companies, Jefferson Airplane finally signed a recording contract with RCA Victor.  The contract included a generous advance of $25,000.  On December 10th, 1965, the Airplane played at the first Bill Graham-promoted show in the Fillmore Auditorium.  The band also appeared at numerous Family Dog shows promoted by Chet Helms at the Avalon Ballroom.

On December 16th the Jefferson Airplane began recording their first album at RCA Victor's Hollywood studio.  They completed the album on March 21st, 1966.  In May 1966 Skip Spence quit the band and went on to form Moby Grape.  Spence would be replaced by jazz drummer Spencer Dryden, who happened to be Charlie Chaplin's nephew.  Dryden played his first show with the Airplane at the Berkeley Folk Festival on July 4th, 1966.  Band manager Katz was fired in August 1966, and Balin's friend and roommate Bill Thompson was installed as road manager and temporary band manager.  Back in May of 1966 Signe Anderson had given birth to her daughter.  So in October Anderson announced her departure from the band.  Before Signe's departure, the band performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival on September 17th.  

The group's debut LP, called Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, was released on August 15th, 1966. Balin provided most of the lead vocals and had a hand in writing all of the original material.  RCA Victor 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 the song "Runnin' Round This World" because executives objected to the word "trip" in the lyrics.  RCA also objected to the lyrics in two other tracks and made the band record revised lyric versions .  While the album sold well in California, it did poorly elsewhere.  It managed to make the Billboard Top 200 on September 17th, 1966. While it spent a total of 11 weeks on the albums chart, it only peaked at #128.

The Great Society and their singer Grace Slick had often supported the Jefferson Airplane in concert.  The Great Society played its last show on September 11th, 1966.  Soon after, Grace Slick was asked to join Jefferson Airplane by Jack Casady.  After Slick replaced Signe Anderson, Jefferson Airplane took off commercially.  Slick possessed a powerful voice, and her stage presence greatly enhanced the group's live impact.  Slick also brought two songs to the band from her previous group.  They were "White Rabbit", written by Grace Slick, and "Somebody to Love", written by her brother-in-law Darby Slick.  

On October 31st, a mere two weeks after Grace Slick joined the band,  the group entered RCA Victor studios in Hollywood to record their second album.  That LP, called Surrealistic Pillow, was recorded in 13 days at a cost of $8,000.  Prior to the album's release, in December 1966, the song "My Best Friend" was released as the future album's first single, but it failed to chart.  Also in December 1966, Jefferson Airplane was featured in a Newsweek article about the booming San Francisco music scene.  That article and similar media reports prompted a massive influx of young people to the city and contributed to the commercialization of hippie culture.  

In 1967 Bill Graham would take over from Thompson as manager of Jefferson Airplane.  On January 14th, 1967, alongside the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane headlined the famous all-day "Human Be-In" happening in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.  The event was free to all, drew a crowd of over 20,000, and would be one of the key events leading up to the "Summer of Love".  It was there that LSD advocate Timothy Leary gave a speech coining his famous phrase "turn on, tune in, drop out".  The songs "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" would become the anthems to the "Summer of Love" in the months that followed.

On February 1st, 1967 RCA Victor released the Surrealistic Pillow album, and it would launch the Jefferson Airplane to international fame.  The name "Surrealistic Pillow" was suggested by Jerry Garcia, when he mentioned that the album sounded "as surrealistic as a pillow is soft."  The album entered the Billboard 200 chart on March 25th.  Initial LP sales started slowly until the second single, "Somebody to Love", started climbing the singles chart.  Heavy nationwide radio play of "Somebody to Love" took the song to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.  "Somebody to Love" would eventually receive a gold certification from the RIAA.  Rolling Stone magazine ranked Jefferson Airplane's version of "Somebody to Love" at #274 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Surrealistic Pillow remained on the Billboard albums chart for over a year.  It ultimately peaked at #3 on the chart and has been certified platinum by the RIAA.  The album's success was aided by the group's first national TV appearances on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on May 7th and on American Bandstand on June 3rd.  The Smothers Brothers performance was videotaped in color and included a simulation, using the Chroma key process, of the group's swirling psychedelic light show.  In 2003, the album was ranked #146 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.  It maintained the same rating in their 2012 list, but ranked #471 in their 2020 list.  Jefferson Airplane's fusion of folk rock and psychedelia was original at the time, and was arguably the start of what became known as "acid rock".  Surrealistic Pillow was the first blockbuster psychedelic album by a band from San Francisco, bringing a great deal of national media attention to the San Francisco scene.

In June 1967 "White Rabbit" became the third single released from the album.  It was the band's second top-10 success, peaking at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.  It eventually received a platinum certification by the RIAA.  The song was ranked #478 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004, #483 in 2010, and #455 in 2021.  It also appears on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.  In 1998, "White Rabbit" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. 

By late 1967 the Jefferson Airplane were national and international stars and had become one of the hottest groups in America.  This phase of the Airplane's career had peaked with their famous performance at the Monterey International Pop Festival on June 17th, 1967.  Monterey Pop showcased leading bands from several major music scenes, both in the US and in the UK.  The resulting TV and film coverage helped launch the "Summer of Love" and 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 1968 film documentary called Monterey Pop.  In August 1967, the Airplane traveled to Canada and performed in Montreal, Quebec at two free outdoor concerts.  The Airplane also benefited greatly from appearances on national network TV shows such as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Ed Sullivan Show.  

However, AM Top 40 radio, in particular, was becoming wary of a group that had scored a hit with a song widely derided for its drug references.  Jefferson Airplane's next single, "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil," was released in August 1967.  Paul Kantner wrote the song and sang lead.  It reached #42 on the strength of the band's recent prominence, but went no further in the pop chart.  

The band's counter-culture style would ultimately restrict their commercial appeal after 1967.  From 1968 on Jefferson Airplane never again enjoyed the kind of widespread radio support they would have needed to score more Top Ten hits.  At the same time, the group did not feel motivated to produce pop hits, and its recordings were becoming more adventurous.  The rise of FM radio, with longer song cuts and the kind of experimental work the group was starting to do, gave the Jefferson Airplane a new way of exposing their music.  Their third album, After Bathing at Baxter's, was released on November 27th, 1967.  The album's songs were arranged into lengthy suites, and it was not as successful as Surrealistic Pillow.  RCA was reportedly displeased when the album only peaked at #17 on the Billboard chart, failing to attain an RIAA gold certification.  Also notable was the diminished participation of Marty Balin, who co-wrote only one song on the album.  Paul Kantner's song, "Watch Her Ride," was released as a single from the LP, but it only reached #61.  None of the band's subsequent singles would reach the Top 40, and some wouldn't even chart.

In February 1968, Grace Slick delivered an "either he goes or I go" ultimatum, and manager Bill Graham was fired.  Bill Thompson took over as permanent manager.  That summer Jefferson Airplane was photographed for a Life magazine story on "The New Rock", appearing on the cover of the June 28th, 1968 edition.  Then in August 1968 the band's fourth album, Crown of Creation, was released.  The LP featured more concise, less experimental tracks than After Bathing at Baxter's.   While the title track would not reach the top 40 in the singles chart, the Crown of Creation LP marked a resurgence in the group's commercial success.  It would be the band's second and final album to reach the Top 10, where it peaked at #6.  The RIAA eventually certified the album gold.  The opening track on the album was a song called "Lather", written by Grace Slick.  Slick says that she wrote the song for the band's drummer, Spencer Dryden, who was at the time 29 years old and her boyfriend.  This podcast will conclude with "Lather".  

After Crown of Creation's release, the band undertook their first major tour of Europe in August and September 1968.  There they played alongside the Doors in the Netherlands, England, Germany, and Sweden.  On August 31st during that tour the band played a set at the first Isle of Wight Festival in Whitwell, England.  Jefferson Airplane's live performance appeal was later chronicled on the concert album Bless Its Pointed Little Head.  That live album, featuring Fall 1968 performances at Fillmores East and West, was released in February 1969 and reached #17 on the Billboard Albums Chart.

A few days after the band headlined at a free concert in New York's Central Park in August 1969, they performed at the Woodstock Festival.  In what Grace Slick called the "morning maniac music" slot at Woodstock, Jefferson Airplane followed The Who and performed at 8am on Sunday, August 17th.  The group was joined on stage by British keyboard player Nicky Hopkins.  Their performance was featured on the million-selling triple-LP soundtrack album for the resulting Woodstock film in 1970. 

The band's fifth studio album, Volunteers, was the last album featuring the classic lineup of the group.  Volunteers was controversial because of its revolutionary and anti-war lyrics, along with the use of profanity.  After some delay, the album was finally released in November 1969.  Volunteers peaked at #13 on the Billboard album chart, becoming the band's fifth Top 20 LP.  It received an RIAA gold certification within two months of its release, and became the band's first album to chart in the UK, peaking at #34.  

On December 6th, 1969, the band played at the disastrous Altamont Speedway Free Festival  at the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California.  It was anticipated that the Festival would be "Woodstock West", and approximately 300,000 attended the concert.  However, the event is remembered for its use of Hells Angels as security and its significant violence, including the killing of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths.  Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen and abandoned, and there was extensive property damage.  During the Airplane's set, the Hells Angels became even more aggressive, including toward the performers.  Marty Balin jumped off the stage to try to sort out the problem, only to be punched in the head and knocked unconscious by an Angel.  Jefferson Airplane's performance, including Hell's Angels members beating Marty Balin, is featured in the 1970 documentary film Gimme Shelter.

The 1970's would bring great changes in the Jefferson Airplane.  Already, Kaukonen and Casady, with assorted sidemen, had begun to play separately as Hot Tuna while maintaining their membership in Jefferson Airplane.  Spencer Dryden was fired early in the year and replaced by drummer Joey Covington.  Band founder Marty Balin left the band at the end of the fall tour in November 1970.  As Jefferson Airplane did not have a new album ready for release in 1970, RCA put out a compilation, sarcastically called The Worst of Jefferson Airplane.  Released in November 1970, the album went gold quickly and was later certified platinum.

The core members of Jefferson Airplane went through various solo efforts and group affiliations in the 1970's and 1980's.  After 1972, Jefferson Airplane effectively split into two groups.  Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady moved on full-time to their own band, Hot Tuna.  Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, and the remaining members of Jefferson Airplane recruited new members and regrouped as Jefferson Starship in 1974, with Marty Balin eventually joining them.  In 1989, Kantner, Slick, Kaukonen, and Casady brought in Balin and reunited as Jefferson Airplane for a tour and album.  The 1989 tour ran from August 18th to October 7th and was well-received.  However, the album, titled Jefferson Airplane, which was released on Epic Records in August 1989, was only a modest success.  After that, the band again became inactive.  Grace Slick retired from music to pursue a second career as a painter and artist.  Paul Kantner eventually resurrected the Jefferson Starship name, sometimes including Balin and even occasionally Slick, and playing Jefferson Airplane songs.  Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady resumed performing as Hot Tuna.  

This podcast is being recorded in February 2025.  Sadly, Marty Balin, Paul Kantner, and Spencer Dryden are all dead.  However, amazingly Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady are still touring as Hot Tuna!  They are playing several East Coast venues this month, doing their two man acoustical set.  

In 1996 the classic lineup of Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  That October 1966 to February 1970 lineup of Hall of Fame inductees included Marty Balin, Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, and Spencer Dryden.  Jefferson Airplane received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

One of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock, Jefferson Airplane defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to achieve international commercial success.  The band epitomized the drug-taking hippie scene, as well as the left-wing antiwar political movement of their time.  Their legacy was one of controversy along with hit records.  Jefferson Airplane toured regularly, and they were the only band to play at all three of the major United States rock festivals of the 1960's -- Monterey, Woodstock, and Altamont.  They released seven studio albums, five of which went gold, plus two live LPs, and a million-selling hits collection that chronicled their eight chart singles.  

Thank you for listening to another episode on Rock and Roll Flashback podcasts!  In this episode I covered some of the highlights of the San Francisco psychedelic rock group called Jefferson Airplane!  I'm Jumpin' John McDermott, and until next time, Rock On!