The name "Jefferson Airplane" was co-owned by Casady, Kantner, Kaukonen, Slick, and the band's manager, Bill Thompson. When it became apparent that Kaukonen and Casady were not interested in reconvening Jefferson Airplane, Kantner decided to form a permanent touring band without them. Many of the same musicians appeared on Grace Slick's debut solo album, Manhole, released in early 1974. The next album from Jefferson Airplane was Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun, credited to Kantner, Slick, and Freiberg and released in the spring of 1973 the album featured the other members of Jefferson Airplane in subsidiary roles, and Chaquico also appeared. Jefferson Airplane gave what turned out to be its final performance in September 1972, by which time Freiberg had joined the group. One track, "Earth Mother," was written by Jack Traylor, a high school English teacher and friend of Kantner's, and on lead guitar was teenager Craig Chaquico, a student of Traylor's and a member of his band Steelwind. Nevertheless, the album featured performers who would be members of Jefferson Starship when it was established as a real band, in particular Kantner, Slick, and Quicksilver Messenger Service member David Freiberg.Ī year later, in late 1971, Kantner and Slick released a duo album, Sunfighter. To pay tribute to this loose-knit studio ensemble and refer to the album's science-fiction theme, Kantner co-billed the album to "Jefferson Starship," even though there was, as yet, no such permanent entity.
Kantner's debut solo album, Blows Against the Empire, featured a long list of musician friends from Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, among others. Lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady were increasingly preoccupied with their spin-off group Hot Tuna, while the band's other creative axis, rhythm guitarist/singer Paul Kantner and singer Grace Slick became a couple and had their own musical and political interests, while singer Marty Balin, the odd man out, became so disenchanted with the band he himself had formed that he quit Jefferson Airplane at the end of a tour in 1970. Jefferson Airplane, the seminal San Francisco psychedelic rock band of the '60s noted for its hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit," began to fragment in the early '70s. Kantner revived Jefferson Starship in the '90s, bringing Freiberg back into the fold in the mid-2000s, and the bassist kept the group going into the 2020s after the 2016 death of Kantner. But with shifting personnel still anchored by Kantner and bassist David Freiberg, Jefferson Starship managed to please its new fans, and some old ones, over a period of a decade before it shifted gears into even more overtly pop territory and changed its name again to simply Starship. Many Airplane fans decried the Starship's more mainstream musical direction, especially after Airplane singers Grace Slick and Marty Balin departed in 1978. It topped Billboard's Top 200 and its smooth single "Miracles" gave the band a number three hit that crossed over to the adult contemporary charts.
Red Octopus, the group's second album, established Jefferson Starship as a mainstream rock powerhouse. Guitarist Paul Kantner and singer Grace Slick started Jefferson Starship after the disbandment of Jefferson Airplane, adding former Airplane vocalist Marty Balin not much later. Jefferson Starship were among the most successful arena rock bands of the 1970s and early '80s.
0 kommentar(er)
