Chasing Rabbits

Balin met folk musician Paul Kantner at a 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.  Balin and Kantner then set about recruiting 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. 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.  After some initial trials the group settled down with drummer Skip Spence (who later founded Moby Grape) and guitarist-bassist Jack Casady, an old friend of Kaukonen from Washington D.C..

The origin of the group's name is often disputed.  Jefferson airplane is slang for a used paper match split to hold a marijuana joint that has been smoked too short to hold without burning the fingers (an improvised roach clip).  An urban legend claims this was the origin of the band's name, but according to band member Jorma Kaukonen, the name was invented by his friend Steve Talbot as a parody of blues names such as Blind Lemon Jefferson.  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!'"

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. 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.  In November 1965, Jefferson Airplane signed a recording contract with RCA Victor, which included an unheard-of advance of $25,000. 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.  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.

Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, released in 1966, is an album that often slides under the radar.  It failed to crack the Billboard top 100 and is many times ignored given the brilliance of the release that would follow.  This is unfortunate as it is a soft and very warm, psychedelic folk album that can stand on its own merits. Signe Anderson may have only recorded this one album with the group, but in some ways she was a good fit for Marty Balin.  They tended to support one another rather than challenge each other, as would happen when Grace Slick joined the band following Anderson’s departure.  Bringing Me Down is a good example of this supportive style.  Her best moments come as the lead vocalist on Chauffeur Blues where her powerful voice just soars. This was really a Marty Balin album. The Paul Kantner-Grace Slick axis did not exist as yet, and the other group members had not begun to assert themselves.  As such, Balin wrote or co-wrote eight of the eleven songs.  His Blues From An Airplane is the first track on the album and was a great way to kick off a recording career.  His performances on It’s No Secret and the cover song, Let’s Get Together, show his versatility and the purity of his voice.  He and the band even manage to pull off an interesting version of the often-recorded Tobacco Road.  It would be his track, Come Up The Years, written with Paul Kantner, that would point the way to the group’s future.

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.  The following night, her replacement Grace Slick made her first appearance.  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 as a former model, her good looks and stage presence greatly enhanced the group's live impact.   Drummer Alexander 'Skip' Spence had left the band in mid-1966, replaced by Los Angeles jazz drummer Spencer Dryden, a nephew of Charlie Chaplin 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.  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 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."

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 US 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.  All through the summer of love the flower children, from all around the world, laid down their heads, to dream of peace and love, on a surrealistic pillow. Surrealistic Pillow and the summer of love was a tough act to follow.  Their third album After Bathing at Baxter's, was released on November 27, 1967 and featured a heavy acid rock sound with the emphasis on improvisation rather than commercialism.  Only one song, Young Girl Sunday Blues, is included here.  Subsequent releases - Crown of Creation (1968) and Volunteers (1969) were more commercial.  However, 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. Marty Balin, frustrated over the influence of harder drugs on their music "playing that messed up cocained music", left the group as recording for their 5th album began in the spring of 1971.  Bark, released September 1971, was a success upon its release, reaching #11 on the charts and eventually went gold.  However, history has not been kind to Bark - In The Rolling Stone Record Guide (1st edition, 1979), editor John Swenson wrote, "After Balin left, the group literally fell apart.  A cursory listen to the wretched Bark (deleted) will prove the point."

Wanderin' Spirit
December, 2013
"Chasing Rabbits"

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