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The group led by Paul Kantner, Grace Slick and Marty Balin was the standard-bearer of alternative rock style "West Coast", starting from their first album Takes Off (1966) and the the participation at the first rock festivals, with the apex at Woodstock in 1969. The Californian group has been able to combine experimentation, tradition, protest and opposition to the logic of the market, with great success, especially in the United States. Formed around Kantner and Balin, with the significant alliance of the duo of virtuoso guitar and electric bass Kaukonen and Casady, keepers of the blues tradition, and supported by drummer Spencer Dryden, a lover of country roots, the Jefferson Airplane have been focused on a front-woman, that in the first album was the singer of Scandinavian origin Signe Anderson. The still valid Anderson, however, was replaced since the second album by singer, pianist and composer Grace Slick, who was also of foreign origin (Finland) and already in force to another group, the Great Society. She had everything: beauty, power of voice, musical ability, stage presence, free-spirited and rebellious.
Already in February 1967, a crucial year
for the world of music, Slick signed one of the classics of the group,
White Rabbitt, inserted into the second album Surrealistic Pillow, which
also contained their first smash-hit, Somebody To Love (composed by
Slick, too) which made them the number 1 in the "summer of love" hippie
and psychedelic of San Francisco that year. Grace Slick became then the
companion of Kantner and they formed one of the two musical poles of the
group (the other was formed by Kaukonen and Casady, Balin soon passed to
a lateral position).
Typical
album of this phase are the absolute masterpiece of Crosby "If I Could
Only Remember My Name" and the album came out in 1973 on behalf of
Kantner, Slick, and Freiberg of Quicksilver, "Baron Von Toolbooth & The
Chrome Nun". It's also remarkable the disc dedicated by the two leaders
to their newborn daughter, China: "Sunfighter." |
Essential Discography |
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Takes Off (1966) See also: Complete Discography |
© Alberto Maurizio Truffi. Contact / Music-Graffiti 2013 |