From their debut, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (with soon to be departed original members Signe Anderson and Skip Spence), comes "It's No Secret" and "Blues From An Airplane." Both tracks reveal glimpses of what the band would soon become, especially Balin's R&B vocals on "It's No Secret." But it wasn't until the release of Surrealistic Pillow, with the band completed by Dryden and Slick, that their full potential was realized. Slick brought two of her own songs, "White Rabbit" and "Somebody To Love," to that record and they would become the band's only legitimate radio hits. Both are included here.
But by that time, Jefferson Airplane didn't really seem to care about radio at all as the band's output grew more experimental musically, and political lyrically. The albums After Bathing At Baxter's and Crown of Creation saw the band growing by leaps and bounds, with Kaukonen and Casady in particular flexing their musical muscle. The politics were becoming more overt in songs like Grace Slick's "Lather" (which she famously performed in blackface on "The Smothers Brothers Show"), while the powerful combination of Kaukonen and Casady took the music in a harder direction on tracks like "Greasy Heart" and "Watch Her Ride," here for the first time as bonus tracks.
But it is on a live version of "Plastic Fantastic Lover," from the classic live Airplane album Bless Its Pointed Little Head that the Airplane's power as a live band is best showcased. By the time Casady's bass kicks in following the track's guitar intro, it shakes the song's very foundation. By its end, Kaukonen leads are dancing around and around Casady's equally fast runs up and down the fret board. For his part, Balin also turns in one of his best vocal performances here as well.
1969's Volunteers would ultimately prove to be the swansong for the classic Jefferson Airplane lineup. Not surprisingly, it remains their most fully realized work. The songs here are more political than ever, with both the title track and Kantner's "We Can Be Together" (with it's famous rallying cry of "Up Against the Wall Motherfucker"), serving as charged anthems for the by-then wiltering flower power generation. But the bluesy sounds that Casady and Kaukonen would later mine with Hot Tuna are also represented here by Kaukonen's "Good Shepherd," a gorgeous reworking of a traditional spiritual. Jerry Garcia provides steel backup here.
With Jefferson Airplane already splintering at that point, Jorma and Jack began turning their energies to Hot Tuna, the one-time side project that by now had become increasingly a full time proposition.
Keep On Truckin': The Very Best of Hot Tuna, clocking in at about 76 minutes, features songs from eight Hot Tuna albums recorded between 1969 and 1978, all chosen by Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady themselves. Although various musicians have drifted in and out of Hot Tuna over the years, the focus has always been on Kaukonen and Casady. Likewise, the musical emphasis has always been on the blues that both musicians grew up with.
Article comments
1 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Nice review and overview. I remember--if my folks were home--having to turn down the volume on "We Can Be Together" during the rallying cry. And of course I had to hide the topless hippie chicks whenever mom came in with clean socks or whatever (you gotta remember that the pills that Mother takes, do nothing at all).
---Feed Your Head, GH
2 - Glen Boyd
Thanx for the kind words Gordon. I wish I could've had some topless hippie chicks to hide whenever Mom came in my room. that would've fed far more than just my head if ya know what I mean...
-Glen
3 - Maurice
Casady and that damned oversized ygdrasil bass of his...best damned rock bassist ever if you ask me. It's too bad that most people have forgotten how great J-Plane really was. Of course the fact that they were later responsible for crap like "We Built This City" and the rest of the Starshit stuff didn't do a lot to help their legacy did it? Ive already got Worst on vinyl but I'll definitely get the reissue based on your review. Thnks!
4 - Mudbaby
get me to the hippy chix please.
5 - Maurice
Mudbaby you are one sick pup
6 - Glen Boyd
Thanx for the comments Maurice and, umm, Mudbaby...LOL
-Glen
7 - Vern Halen
Love the JA stuff, Baxter's in particular & Pointed Head, too. Only have one Tuna album, the live two record set - the electric stuff really does it for me.
Yeah, two great bands that seem to have gone unheralded. Maybe some future hippie chill'un will get into them again.
8 - Glen Boyd
Vern,
Pointed Head is indeed a realy unheralded live album these days. People seem to have forgotten just how potent JA could be as a live band because the only two songs ever played by classic rock radio are Somebody To Love and White Rabbit. Casady's bass is just all over the freaking place on that album though. Baxter's is more of an aquired taste, but "Spare Chaynge" has some of the most magnificent use of feedback I've ever heard.
I never really got into Hot Tuna either but this new collection is really a great place to start if you are a late bloomer.
Thanks for the comment.
-Glen
9 - Mark Saleski
nice review glen. for live things, i also like "30 Seconds Over Winterland". yea, i know it was a drastically reconfigured band at that point but there was still some great music on it.
love Hot Tuna as well. it's great to see those two guys live.
10 - Glen Boyd
Thanks Mark.
I never really "got" the latter stages of the Airplane with Papa John Creach and that particular lineup. For me it was always about Jorma and Jack, although I confess to Grace being one of my earliest boyhood crushes. Maybe I'll go back and check out "30 Seconds"...are Jorma or Jack still playing with them on that record? I honestly can't remember.
Thanks for the comment Mark.
-Glen
11 - Mark Saleski
Jorma is definitely on that record. i think Marty and Spenser were gone at that point.
i just remember digging Papa John. truly though, it's a completely different band.
12 - Glen Boyd
I'll have to check it out again then Mark. It's been something like 30 years since I've last heard "30 Seconds".
-Glen
13 - Vern Halen
"Long John Silver" was my own personal introduction to the Airplane soon-to-be Starship. The title track, as well as Milk Train and Eat Starch Mom are metallic & spooky, drenched in reverb while a fiddle saws away in the background. My friends were into... the Doobie Brothers, who didn't sound anything like this.
14 - Glen Boyd
Vern,
Long John Silver was a decent album...better than Bark for sure. And certainly better than most of The Doobie Brothers stuff(though I always liked that "Cheat The Hangman" of theirs).
But after Volunteers the magic, at least in my opinion, was pretty much gone. Jefferson Starship had a few moments (and I do mean the "Jeffersonian" edition rather than that goddawful Starship band they became in the eighties) too.
But it just never really felt the same. Of course by that time, the magic of that entire era (not just the Airplane), was fading as well.
I don't regret that a lot of the stupidity of those times has passed. In fact, I thank God for it. But damn if there wasn't amazing music back then.
Thanks for the comments Vern.
-Glen
15 - Bob Harvey
Bob Harvey former Jefferson Airplane bassist appears w/ Harvey Bainbridge Hawkwind legend on the new Spaceseed and Harvey Bainbridge album. Catch Bob on tour w/ Jerry Miller (Moby Grape).
16 - Georgia Blue
Sometimes the big lights in popular music rise in glory and then burn out too soon. But some of those who played with them, no less talented but less well-known, keep a steady, warming glow -- they keep making music for all of their lives.
Bob Harvey is one of those. Past the time when others retire or want to be forgotten, Bob Harvey loves performing so much he can't quit. He keeps adding young talent to the sound of his current band, Georgia Blue, and truckin' on.
California was the setting for the legendary Bluegrass group, the Slippery Rock String Band, where Bob got his start in 1963. Then he was a founding member of Jefferson Airplane but went back to the re-formed Slippery Rock group and then into folk-rock with Catfish Wakely
Both the U.S. Navy and getting a journalism degree kept Bob working in other areas for some time, including writing and being managing editor for American Trucker Magazine. On assignment for the Navy in 1990, he went to Saudi Arabia and met Brian Fowler, whose "mandolin playing pulled me back into Bluegrass music," Bob says.
The two formed San Francisco Blue and recorded the CDs "Idiot's Vision" ; "Live on the Cartersville Express"; "Hurting for People," a tribute to Skip Spence, an Airplane member who co-wrote the song with Bob "back then"; and "Live at ARTS in hARTwell." Brian and Bob performed together at Brasstown Bald's Musicfest, Race Fest in Morrow, Ga., and again at the Cartersville Arts Festival, and then Brian decided to step back from music for a while.
Since all the current performers are from Calhoun, Ga., Bob has changed the name to Georgia Blue. Alesia Chester is a skillful and experienced harmony singer who joins Bob on vocals. Bob says violinist Danny Taylor's "soulful and intuitive progressions will absolutely pull your heartstrings." Taylor will co-produce the group's next show and CD, "Alternative Country." The icing on the cake, says Bob, is Zack Lanier, a guitar-banjo man whose playing Bob likens to that of Chuck McCabe on "Live at the House of the Rising Sun" recorded by Jefferson Airplane in 1966
Firmly bound by his musical roots, but ever willing to leap out in faith on a new project, Bob Harvey continues to play festivals and venues wherever people want music that feels good, music that tells a story, and lyrics that have a message.
17 - Glen Boyd
Wow thats heavy...man.
-Glen