Jefferson Airplane emerged from the San Francisco scene of the 1960s. The band once was as big as The Grateful Dead, but didn’t fare as well over time.
The Jefferson Airplane was followed by Jefferson Starship and, finally, Starship. Along the way it spawned Hot Tuna, which features lead guitar player Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady and is a major band in its own right.
Here is how Jefferson Airplane’s site describes its early days:
Jefferson Airplane’s debut show was on August 13, 1965 at the Matrix nightclub in San Francisco. The first performance featured Marty Balin on vocals, Paul Kantner on vocals/rhythm guitar, and Jorma Kaukonen on lead guitar. Signe A
nderson, (who sang on Jefferson Airplane’s first recording “Jefferson Airplane Takes Off”) also performed. The bass player, Jack Casady and drummer Skip Spence, (who was later one of the original members of Moby Grape) joined the band two months later. Spencer Dryden became the drummer in June of 1966 and Grace Slick joined as vocalist in October of 1966. The band performed the first concert for Bill Graham at the legendary Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco in February of 1966.Jefferson Airplane performed at the Berkeley Folk Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, and Altamont. They had hit singles White Rabbit and Somebody to Love, from the album “Surrealistic Pillow”. (Continue Reading…)[/column][column size=one_half position=last ] [/column]
Wikipedia has a comprehensive opening paragraph:
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1965. A pioneer of counterculture-era psychedelic rock, the group was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve international mainstream success. Their 1967 record Surrealistic Pillow is regarded as one of the key recordings of the “Summer of Love“.[1][2][3] The band performed at the three most famous American rock festivals of the 1960s—Monterey (1967), Woodstock (1969) and Altamont (1969)[4]—as well as headlining the first Isle of Wight Festival (1968). Two hits from the album “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit“, are listed in Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. Successor bands to Jefferson Airplane include Jefferson Starship and Starship; spinoffs include Hot Tuna and KBC Band. Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. (Continue Reading)
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