Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship/Hot Tuna/Solo & More: Album-By-Album

Oh yes, for sure they improved by time they recorded the live shows for those two albums which are next though they were released in 1968, we're going to cover them as live 1966 material so those are next and we'll do the Airplane '66 live shows, - be good to have those back-to-back. The songs you named were great and to be honest, I listen to Great Society for 1966 material more than JefAir.

 

THE GREAT SOCIETY with Grace Slick - CONSPICUOUS ONLY IN ITS ABSENCE
(live 1966, at The Matrix, released 1968)


Conspicuous Only in Its Absence is an album by the American psychedelic rock band The Great Society and was released in 1968 by Columbia Records.[1] The album consists of recordings made during a live concert performance by the band at The Matrix club in San Francisco in 1966.[2] Additional recordings from the same concert were released later in 1968 on the album How It Was.[3] These two albums were repackaged in 1971 as a double album called Collector's Item.[1]

Upon its initial release in 1968, Conspicuous Only in Its Absence reached #166 on the Billboard Top LPs chart.[4] A single featuring "Sally, Go 'Round The Roses" and "Didn't Think So" was released in conjunction with the album by Columbia Records but it failed to chart.[5]

1. 
   
   
   • "Sally, Go 'Round The Roses" (Lona Stevens, Zell Sanders) – 6:32
   • "Didn't Think So" (Grace Slick) – 3:23
   • "Grimly Forming" (Peter Vandergelder) – 3:53
   • "Somebody to Love" (Darby Slick) – 4:27
   • "Father Bruce" (Darby Slick, Grace Slick, Jerry Slick, David Miner) – 3:31
   • "Outlaw Blues" (Bob Dylan) – 2:27
   • "Often as I May" (Grace Slick) – 3:43
   • "Arbitration" (Peter Vandergelder) – 3:58
   • "White Rabbit" (Grace Slick) – 6:15

The Great Society

• 
  
  
  • Grace Slick – piano, vocals, bass guitar
  • Darby Slick – guitar
  • David Miner – guitar
  • Jerry Slick – drums
  • Peter Vandergelder (van Gelder) – bass guitar, flute, saxophone

Technical

• 
  
  
  • Herb Greene - photography
  • Producer Peter Abram

 

GRACE SLICK & THE GREAT SOCIETY - HOW IT WAS
(live 1966 at the Matrix, released 1968)

That's How It Is (David Miner) 2:35
Darkly Smiling 3:06
Nature Boy 3:06
You Can't Cry (David Miner) 3:13
Daydream Nightmare (David Miner) 4:30
Everybody Knows 2:33
Born To Be Burned (Darby Slick, Jerry Slick) 3:16
Father 6:41

The Great Society

• 
  
  
  • Grace Slick – piano, vocals, bass guitar
  • Darby Slick – guitar
  • David Miner – guitar
  • Jerry Slick – drums
  • Peter Vandergelder (van Gelder) – bass guitar, flute, saxophone

Technical

• 
  
  
  • Herb Greene - photography
  • Producer Peter Abram

 

GRACE SLICK & THE GREAT SOCIETY - COLLECTOR'S ITEM FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO SCENE
(live 1966 at The Matrix, released 1971 as a 2-LP set)

1. "Sally, Go 'Round The Roses" (Lona Stevens, Zell Sanders) – 6:32
2. "Didn't Think So" (Grace Slick) – 3:23
3. "Grimly Forming" (Peter Vandergelder) – 3:53
4. "Somebody to Love" (Darby Slick) – 4:27
5. "Father Bruce" (Darby Slick, Grace Slick, Jerry Slick, David Miner) – 3:31
6. "Outlaw Blues" (Bob Dylan) – 2:27
7. "Often as I May" (Grace Slick) – 3:43
8. "Arbitration" (Peter Vandergelder) – 3:58
9. "White Rabbit" (Grace Slick) – 6:15

10. That's How It Is (David Miner) 2:35
11. Darkly Smiling (Grace Slick) 3:06
12. Nature Boy (E. Abhez) 3:06
13. You Can't Cry (David Miner) 3:13
14. Daydream Nightmare (David Miner) 4:30
15. Everybody Knows (Darby Slick) 2:33
16. Born To Be Burned (Jerry Slick, Darby Slick) 3:16
17. Father 6:41 (Slick, Slick, Slick, Miner)

The Great Society

• Grace Slick – piano, vocals, bass guitar
• Darby Slick – guitar
• David Miner – guitar
• Jerry Slick – drums
• Peter Vandergelder (van Gelder) – bass guitar, flute, saxophone

Technical

• Herb Greene - photography
• Producer Peter Abram

 

'Great Society' in 1966.

"Father Bruce" very creative early piece by Grace, featuring her use of double-entendres; lyrically reminiscent of later pieces like “Lather” (baby-wide), “Crazy Miranda”, or “Easter?”

He's a lonely preacher and he lives at the Swiss Hotel
One night in the middle of a sermon, oh, out the window he fell
Oh, oh, Lenny, we're so glad you're getting well well well

You see the hardheaded people all dress up in a big black robe
They say his word offend them, you know they're hiding their heads in the hole
The words are killing dirty, I use it in the last line
But use a short word for loving, and dad, you wind up doing time (you end up in jail)

Father Bruce is up and walking
Look out, he's gonna start talking
Oh, oh, Lenny, we're so glad you're getting well, well, well

Now won't you get your feet out, Catholic
Father Bruce is back in town
You know he's our kind of preacher
Ain't none of us gonna put him down
He's trying to say something to you, listen while you're still around
Who's gonna carry all the workload when you're ten feet under ground

Father Bruce is up and walking
Look out, he's gonna start talking
Oh, oh, Lenny, we're so glad you're getting well, well, well

Now you may say he's got a bad mouth, but I heard you just the other night
When you're car wouldn't start, boy, the words you said were out of sight
Well, you're a loco Charlie, wouldn't say that word out in a crowd
But Lenny's right up front, baby, speaking his mind right out loud

Father Bruce is up and walking
Look out, he's gonna start talking
Oh, oh, Lenny, we're so glad you're getting well, well, well F&%K.

 

2002 channeling Grace and Great Society with a version of ‘Darkly Smiling’, key of A minor

Paul Kantner - 12 String Guild Acoustic
Marty Balin - Percussion
Prairie Prince - Drums
Mark Slick Aguilar - Lead Guitar
Chris Smith - Keyboard
Diana Mangano - Vocal
Jefferson Starship - The Next Generation 2002
JS-TNG were occasionally joined by Jack Casady on Bass during these years, when he was not on tour with Hot Tuna

 

Grace and her band covering Bob Dylan's ‘Outlaw Blues’ is a cool selection,
but the tune I enjoy is "Nature Boy”, Grace covers Nat King Cole:

 

One more GS '66 Matrix performance: "That's How It Is"

Complete with emcee intro: “Great Society, Their first set this evening’.

The opening lyric: “There’s so much laughter”, Grace laughs out loud, contagious, you feel how ‘real’ she is.

 

How does that pressing sound? Would you recommend it?

 

That was a cool performance and one of the first times I ever saw a Great Society song being played live. I'm surprised Balin and Kantner did it and actually hearing Kantner sing backup a bit was fun. Also in the "Father Bruce" lyrics I like how they warn us early that they'll be cursing at the end of the song.

I was reading Grace Slick's biography Somebody to Love? and she barely mentions The Great Society. Almost in passing talking about something else and even in her discography at the back of the book, they start with her Jefferson Airplane albums. She has a comment about Jack Casady asking her to join JefAir and she's thinking "finally, I'm going to be in the f---ing varsity squad" like she felt The Great Society's music was junior varsity. I don't think it's that much of a difference when it came to songwriting, the Society could hold their own in 1966 with 4 writers while Jefferson Airplane had 3 at the time. The musicianship was the difference though and the Airplane were better in that category. The comparison she mentions is that live, the Airplane were way louder.

 

How is it? Worth picking up?

 

Well, Grace is such a great rock star personality with no filter I'd say it's probably worth the $15 I spent on it. I think I got it on eBay. It stays general when it comes to her opinions on her own music and the band's but she gets detailed outside of the music - what it was like living through all of it. There were some memorable moments that she has cool perspectives of whether it be JefAir hitting big, living in a communal house, Woodstock, Altamont, having a child, that famous drunken speech with JefStar, going solo, etc. It reads quickly and it's broken up into a lot of sections.

 

Not that impressed with sound quality of the mono version, but glad to have it just because it's the uncensored version as originally released. On the back of the LP jacket it touts this as a DYNAGROOVE record that are the product of RCA Victor's newly developed system of recording which provides a spectacular improvement in sound quality. The underlying description sounds great, your mileage my vary.

 

Great thread so far! It's taken me awhile to catch up, so I hope it's not too late to post some thoughts about Jefferson Airplane Takes Off.

Obviously their debut lacks the consistancy of some of their later, "better" albums, but I think the reason why it remains one of my most played is summed up perfectly by SGR earlier in the thread when they described the "charming innocence and a hopeful feeling about it". Charm, innocence and hopefulness are characteristics I have come to really value in music over the past few years. Going back and listening to a lot of the folk-rock albums mentioned upthread, there's a spirit of thoughtful optimism found in songs like "Turn! Turn! Turn!", "Go Where You Wanna Go" or "Do You Believe in Magic?" that seems to get turned on its head around the summer of 1967, when things started getting "heavy". That's why the first two JA albums stand out to me. That's not to say the group didn't make fantastic music after that (Baxter's is and will remain a favorite of mine for its sheer adventurousness), but the niavete was gone from that point on, and everything going forward was now serious business.

If I may go off on a small tangent, I think it was the influence of Jimi Hendrix and particularly the band Cream that changed rock music completely. Cream's 1967 summer U.S. tour seems to have been the event that definitively changed the whole SF ballroom scene. By all reports they arrived on the west coast that summer and blew everybody's mind with their virtuosity and sheer sonic power. I recently came across a quote from Jorma (can't recall where, or else I'd print it verbatim) where he said he threw away his 12-string in disgust after witnessing Cream at the Fillmore for the first time.

While I admire Cream and the JHE as much as most here seem to, to me it seems like something really good got lost in the aftermath of those groups' U.S. takeover. There's a kind of earnestness and heard on Takes Off (and Surrealistic, which we'll discuss soon) that I miss on the later JA efforts. It's the work of smart, ambitious young people stumbling onto a whole new sound and trying to formulate it into something majestic. I hear it in the joyous "It's No Secret", where it sounds like Marty and Signe are having a blast singing with one another. It's there in the proto-psychedelic "Let Me In", where you can hear the band coming together as a unit. And I especially hear it in the tender and thoughtful "Come Up the Years" and "Runaround" (a seriously underrated track that has been stuck in my head for weeks.)

Anyway I realize I'm probably in the minority, but Takes Off is a really special album to me, despite its flaws. I look forward to reading the rest of this thread. (As an aside, can anybody direct me to a live performance of the Airplane with Signe and Spence? I think I read that one such show does exist.)

 

Hi Jason,

A CD released by 'Collectors’ Choice’‎ - Jefferson Airplane - Live At The Fillmore Auditorium 10/15/66 (Late Show - Signe's Farewell).

Spencer is on drums, final Signe show, including fine performances of 'Go To Her', 'Chauffeur Blues’ and ’High Flying Bird’, etc.

Also, Jorma reiterates his story of trashing his Ricky 360 12-String after seeing Cream at The Fillmore on Page 160, within his book “Been So Long”, c 2018.

 

I'm happy to see this thread. Some personal recollections of the band and their music:

I think I first became aware of the JA in 1967 listening to San Francisco's short-lived KMPX, which was probably the world's first "underground" FM station, and KSAN's fore-runner. But I also recall that as a young teen growing up in Marin, the older sister of my best friend from down the street, who had adventurous musical tastes, had a Jefferson Airplane Takes Off poster on her bedroom wall. That might have been in '66 and might have been when I became aware of them. At any rate I'm 65 they go way back for me.

Despite being very into rock music and living in SF and Marin through the 60's and 70's, I don't think I ever saw JA live, except for Altamont (!), which barely counts. (No, I didn't see it when Marty got slugged by the Hell's Angel.)

I worked in a locally famous record store in Mill Valley in the early 70's where Marty Balin was a regular customer. He was always friendly and unpretentious. Good guy. I wish I had been brave enough to chat with him more and ask him about his career. (I went on to work in recording for decades, and was to make that mistake many more times. Oh well.) I knew of the Matrix from word of mouth, but until recently didn't know that Marty Balin founded it. Amazing guy, and a major pioneer of the San Francisco scene and rock in general.

My uncle Leo Kulka operated Golden State Recorders in San Francisco, where a lot of early SF rock albums were done. He recorded most of the Autumn Records material, with Sly Stone and sometimes the late great Tom Donehue (who was program director at KMPX and later KSAN). My uncle was an older, old-world European man. He usually got on well with the SF folkies and psychedelic troubadours but I laugh to imagine him working with Sly Stone (who, speaking of radio, was a DJ on KSOL at the time).

Sadly, though my uncle invited me over to observe several cool recording sessions at Golden State, I don't think I ever saw Grace Slick or the Great Society there.

BTW, isn't there some well known photo of Grace Slick that was shot at Golden State? I think I saw it at one time.

I cannot begin to guess how many parties and get-togethers I attended in the Bay Area, LP's by the Airplane or one of its cousins was played. Most of them. Thousands. They were hugely popular in the Bay Area.

I listened to JA and the other incarnations on and off over the years and liked a lot of their songs. I was never a huge fan, but always kind of liked them. Then for some random reason I started listening to Surrealistic Pillow a lot over the last couple months, and was amazed by all the excellent songs. It really got under my skin. The first five songs on that album are quite the amazing tour de force, and they all hold up very well 50 years on. I also have Baxter's, Volunteers, and Bless Its on vinyl, but haven't listed to any of them in ages. Maybe it's time to fire one of those up again.

I'm a long time Hot Tuna fan, and still listen to that first live album once in a while. They're playing in Sacramento and Utah next month as part of their tour and I was thinking about going out to catch one of those shows. And I just picked up a copy of Jorma Kaukonen's autobiography Been So Long, which I'm going to read soon.

So yeah, I relate to this band in a lot of ways, and they've really been on my mind lately!

 

Did you work at Village Music in Mill Valley ?

I was at SF State in the broadcasting department and visited Golden State recorders several times and even met your uncle.

We are about the same age and I also went to Altamont, but I saw the Airplane three or four times aside from that disaster.

And your uncle brought some of the first tape recorders to the USA

 

Yes, you are right about all that, and I wonder if we met back then?

 

I moved out of SF five years ago. Live in Seattle now but I was actually in Mill Valley this past Sunday.

By best friend @chacha lives in San Rafael. He’s also a native San Franciscan like myself.

 

Huh, "It's no secret" is more of classic built up over time as opposed to a hit in it's day?
It surely had to be known in Bay Area circles at least? The Bay Area, in certain eras at least, is probably a better market than most US states and most nations. IMO being big in the Bay Area is "being big".

 

I loved Golden State! We mixed our first album there.

 

Here is how I got into Jefferson Airplane. A few years ago, having only heard the Song, 'White Rabbit', I was seeking more of the Psychedelic-Rock Sound of JA and found that 'Baxters' & 'Creation' hit that spot for me(Baxters being my Favorite JA Album). 'Surrealistic Pillow' is a Good Album(love 'Today') except for 2 Weak Songs(My Best Friend & How Do You Feel), although still not much Psychedelic-Rock beyond 'White Rabbit'. 'Volunteers' is ok, but no longer Psychedelic-Rock Music to me.

I skipped the 1st Album(Takes Off), as heard it was Folk-Rock, which is Music Genre I do not like, and have enough of the early Songs anyways prior to 'SP' album on 'The Worst of JA' and last year bought a Used Copy of the Box Set(JA Loves You), which I was stoked to find for only $14 and the Box and Booklet are in Excellent Condition(The Colors on the Outer Box looks a little Faded to me like it was left out in the Sunlight, but not sure if that was how the Colors of the Outer Box looked originally when New, or just faded over time, but the Box is Sturdy).

I also love a few of the Live Albums, 'Bless Its Pointed Little Head' and the Woodstock 2 CD Set that has the 'Volunteers' Album also on it, so I did not need to buy 'Volunteers' separately(although wish the Woodstock Songs were all on the Same CD and not split over the 2 CDs, which breaks up the listening experience). Also own another Live CD, 'Sweeping Up the Spotlight'(think it is one of the Fillmore Concerts), which has several songs from SP, Baxters & Creation.

Also, like 'Blows Against the Empire' Album very much.

Since, I do not care much for Folk-Rock and never even bought 'Jefferson Airplane Takes Off' when I bought their 2nd-5th CDs, I cannot really comment on that Album, but will try to participate in this Thread once it gets to 'Surrealistic Pillow', 'Baxters', 'Creation', 'Volunteers' and the 3 'Live Albums I own.

Best $7 on a Music DVD(Non Blu-Ray) I ever spent.
Worth it alone just to own the Rooftop Performance of 'House at Pooneil Corners' alone.
Fly Jefferson Airplane, It Will Get You There on Time!

 

So after reading this thread, I went looking on Google for images of the Airplane ca. '66, and I found that there weren't too many in color. I had a bit of time to kill as I'm off work and about to go on vacation tomorrow, so I thought it might be fun to try to colorize an old black-and-white photo. Anyhow, I'll post the results here in case anyone would like to see.

Here's the original:




And now the colorized version:

 

I always wanted to hear what they sounded like live with Skip. For a guitarist, he did really well on drums. Craig Fenton described a 1965 homemade tape of Signe and Skip rehearsing songs with Skip playing acoustic guitar and bass.

 

THE GREAT SOCIETY - LIVE AT THE MATRIX 1966
(released 2018)




The most recent Great Society release - just last year. It's only the 4th official full-length release since they began 54 years ago.