Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band from San Francisco, a pioneer of the LSD-influenced psychedelic rock movement. Various successor incarnations of the band have performed under different names, reflecting changing times and performer lineups, known as Jefferson Starship, and later simply Starship.

Jefferson Airplane was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

The term Jefferson airplane is also slang for a used match bent to hold a marijuana cigarette that has been smoked too short to hold without burning the hands. An urban legend claims this was the origin for the band's name, though according to band member Jorma Kaukonen the name was invented by his friend Steve Talbot as a satire of blues names such as "Blind Lemon" Jefferson

Jefferson Airplane
This rock group formed on the west coast of the USA during the summer of 1965 in what was called the San Francisco Bay folk boom. Singer Marty Balin recruited another folk musician, Paul Kantner, blues guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, jazz and folk vocalist Signe Toly Anderson, drummer Jerry Peloquin, and acoustic bassist Bob Harvey. They drew inspiration from groups such as the Beatles, the Byrds, and the Lovin' Spoonful, and built a local following at the Matrix Club.

The band gradually developed a more electric sound which led to Harvey's replacement by Kaukonen's childhood friend, Jack Casady in October 1965. Later in 1965, they signed to Record Corporation of America and recorded an album for release the following year called Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, with Skip Spence on drums. Later in 1966, Spence was replaced by jazz drummer Spencer Dryden and Anderson by singer Grace Slick, formerly of another San Francisco group, The Great Society. Slick pulled the band clear of the softer folk scene and towards a more adventurous and experimental style in which jazz, blues and rock traditions all played a part. Amongst their fans, the group's name was further shortened to "the Airplane".

Membership remained stable until 1970, by when they had recorded five albums. The first of these, Surrealistic Pillow (1967), included two classic tracks, White Rabbit (inspired by the hallucinogenic drug LSD, then extremely popular in San Francisco, and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland), and the rousing anthem Somebody to Love, as well as a reminder of their earlier folk incarnation, Kaukonen's acoustic Embryonic Journey. The album reached number 6 in the US album charts.

After Bathing At Baxters (1967), a concept album based around an LSD experience, further showed their proficiency in psychedelic rock. Crown Of Creation (1968) was a transitionary record, less overblown than ...Baxters, whereas Bless Its Little Pointed Head (1969) captured their live sound, recorded at concerts at the Fillmore and the Fillmore East. In the aftermath of the demise of the San Francisco scene, the band released Volunteers (1969), their most political venture. Balin and Dryden left shortly thereafter. Two albums were released on the band's own label, Grunt, Bark and Long John Silver, after which Casady and Kaukonen also left. The live album 30 Seconds Over Winterland (1973) is now best remembered for its cover art, featuring a squadron of flying toasters.

Jefferson Starship
During the transitional period of the early 1970s, Paul Kantner recorded the album Blows Against The Empire with an ad-hoc group of musicians whom he dubbed the Jefferson Starship, marking the first-ever use of that name. The Starship (such as it was) included David Crosby (of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), Jerry Garcia (of The Grateful Dead), and even former members of Jefferson Airplane. It was while that album was made that Kantner sealed his love affair with Grace Slick, and their daughter China Kantner was born shortly after.

In 1974, the Airplane was formally reborn as Jefferson Starship, with Kantner and Slick as charter members; Balin came on board in time to record the hit single "Caroline" for the first Jefferson Starship album, Dragon Fly. This line-up, which also included late-Airplane holdovers drummer John Barbata, fiddler Papa John Creach, and bassist-keyboarder-vocalist David Freiberg, along with Pete Sears, also playing bass and keyboards, and guitarist Craig Chaquico, proved to be the band's most commercially successful so far, although some Airplane fans were less than happy with its more mainstream direction. Balin's ballad "Miracles" helped 1975's Red Octopus achieve multiple-platinum status. The follow-ups, Spitfire (1976), and Earth (1978), were both big sellers. However, Slick's alcoholism became a problem, which led to two nights of disastrous concerts in Germany in 1978. The first night, fans ransacked the stage after Slick failed to appear. The following night, Slick, in a drunken stupor, shocked the audience by using profanity and sexual references throughout most of her songs. After the debacle, she left the band.

Towards the end of 1978, the Starship (now without Grace Slick) recorded Light The Sky On Fire for The Star Wars Holiday Special, after which Balin too left the group, leaving Kantner and company to find a new lead singer in Mickey Thomas (who had sung lead on Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around And Fell In Love"). Thomas's soaring falsetto steered the band toward a harder rock sound, although critics somewhat unfairly compared the new Jefferson Starship to Journey. It didn't help that former Journey drummer Aynsley Dunbar had replaced Barbata, who had been injured in a car accident.

After the 1979 release of Freedom At Point Zero (which spawned the hit single "Jane"), Grace Slick suddenly returned to the band for one song, "Stranger" on their next album, Modern Times in 1981. Winds Of Change followed in 1982 and Nuclear Furniture appeared in May of 1984.

Starship
In 1984, Kantner (the last founding member of Jefferson Airplane remaining) left the group, but not before taking legal action against his former bandmates over the Jefferson name (the rest of the band wanted to continue as Jefferson Starship). Kantner won his suit, and the group name was reduced to simply Starship, marking the third incarnation of the band. Freiberg, who had been increasingly marginalized in the band, left as well.

Starship released its 'debut' Knee Deep In The Hoopla in September 1985 and immediately scored two #1 singles with "We Built This City" and "Sara", the former of which was # 1 on the list of Blender magazine's "Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever." The album eventually peaked at # 7 and went platinum.

In early 1987 the song "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" was used as the theme to the film Mannequin and became Starship's biggest hit, although only Thomas and Slick appeared on it. After the departure of bassist Pete Sears in March, the quartet released No Protection which included "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" as well as the # 9 hit "It's Not Over ('Till It's Over).

However, Mickey Thomas seemed to show content to be the sole lead vocalist and Grace Slick left in 1988, leaving no link to the original Airplane. In late 1988 "Wild Again" was also featured on the Cocktail soundtrack. Starship's final album Love Among The Cannibals sold poorly, thanks in part to the cancellation of a tour after Thomas was attacked in a bar, requiring plastic surgery. It yielded only one Top 40 hit - the aptly titled "It's Not Enough". In 1990 the remaining members disbanded.

Reunion and remnants
Solo careers and the attractions of other bands beckoned throughout. But in 1989, during a solo San Francisco gig, Paul Kantner found himself joined by former bandmate (and lover) Grace Slick and two other ex-Airplane members for a cameo appearance. This led to a formal reunion of the original Jefferson Airplane (featuring nearly all the main members, including co-founder Marty Balin, but without Spencer Dryden, who had been kicked out of the band years earlier). A self-titled album was released by Columbia Records, but the accompanying tour was everything the album wasn't, a success, but their revival too was short-lived, and thus Jefferson Airplane was officially disbanded for good.

Today, there are two versions of Jefferson Starship — one officially billed as Mickey Thomas' Starship (with Thomas at the forefront), and the revived Jefferson Starship (often called Jefferson Starship: The Next Generation), with Kantner and Balin as leaders, and Diana Mangano replacing Grace Slick as female singer (although Slick did do guest vocals on Jefferson Starship's 1999 album Windows Of Heaven).

See Wikipedia, Jefferson Airplane, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Airplane