Music History

Music+History

Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane is one of my favorite psychedelic groups and also one of the most known. Like most rock groups of their time, they originated from a folk and blues. In fact, Jefferson Airplane was ahead of other San Francisco groups such as the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company. They were the first band on that setting to sign record deal and tour in the U.S.A and Europe.
Jefferson Airplane included Marty Balin on vocals, Jack Casadyon bass, Spender Dryden on drums, Paul Kanter on vocals and guitar, Jorma Kaukonen on guitar and vocals, and Grace Slick on vocals, key boards, flutes, and the recorder.
For this article I will be focusing on three songs, Volunteers, White Rabbit, and Somebody to Love. Volunteers was released at Woodstock (an iconic exposition of music which I will probably write about at the end of the year). Volunteers was just an anthem, a revolutionary anthem about a generation that wanted more than their parents had and also had way more opportunities, unfortunately, half of this generation was shipped off to a foreign country…Yes I am referring to the Vietnam War in case you did not figure this out. White Rabbit is by far their most iconic song. As the title implies it filled with imagery from Lewis Caroll’s book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The song mimics effects of LSD and is often regarded as the first, and without a doubt, one of the best psychedelic songs ever.  It also has some great bass and vocals going on in it. Somebody To Love is probably a song that we are the most familiar with since it was in Cable Guy with Jim Carrey, where he does a comedy cover of it at a karaoke bar. Somebody to Love is just purely on the vibe that the summer of love, the summer of 1967,gave off.
Eventually, Jefferson Airplane would change their name to Jefferson Starship and manufacture Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now. And finally, when they went beyond the point of selling, out Jefferson Starship’s other iconic 80s song came out, which is featured in various films including on The Muppets released in 2011. I’m not exactly sure what the other former band members are up to in 2014, but I do know that Grace Slick is now a painter of some kind.