Jefferson Airplane Albums (11)
'At the Family Dog Ballroom'
Release Date 10/22/2007
Tracks 10
Label Snapper
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What The Critics Say
Although the European market has been flooded with unauthorized Jefferson Airplane live recordings that are bootlegs in all but name, there has also been a series of apparently legitimate releases with excellent sound and packaging issued by Charly in the U.K. and previously including At Golden Gate Park and Last Flight. This third release in the series comes chronologically in between its predecessors, having been recorded in September 1969. At that time, Jefferson Airplane was in the midst of preparations for its studio album Volunteers, which would be released in November, and five of the songs to be featured on that LP are previewed at this show ("Good Shepherd," "We Can Be Together," "The Farm," "Wooden Ships," and "Volunteers"). In addition, the band was looking forward to the more fragmented state in which it would exist in coming years, with spin-off entities working simultaneously with the main band. Toward the end of the 15-minute opening version of "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil," singer/guitarist Paul Kantner begins introducing material that would turn up later on his 1970 solo album Blows Against the Empire, and "Come Back Baby," a showcase for lead guitarist/singer Jorma Kaukonen, heralds his and bassist Jack Casady's nascent duo Hot Tuna (which recorded its debut album the same month as this show). Jefferson Airplane cannot claim as much justification as the Grateful Dead for putting out a series of live albums; the band had a more limited repertoire than the Dead and was not given to lengthy improvisations to the same extent as its San Francisco contemporary. But in addition to the foreshadowing inclusions already mentioned, this release proves an exception via the inclusion of an energetic 26-minute "Jam" that takes on Dead-like characteristics by including the Dead's lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia, as a guest. That will make this album valuable not only to Airplane fanatics, but to Dead fans as well. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Jefferson Airplane Takes Off'
Release Date 1/30/1996
Tracks 24
Label RCA
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What The Critics Say
The debut Jefferson Airplane album was dominated by singer Marty Balin, who wrote or co-wrote all the original material and sang most of the lead vocals in his heartbreaking tenor with Paul Kantner and Signe Anderson providing harmonies and backup. (Anderson's lead vocal on "Chauffeur Blues" indicated she was at least the equal of her successor, Grace Slick, as a belter.) The music consisted mostly of folk-rock love songs, the most memorable of which were "It's No Secret" and "Come up the Years." (There was also a striking version of Dino Valente's "Get Together" recorded years before the Youngbloods' hit version.) Jorma Kaukonen already displayed a talent for mixing country, folk, and blues riffs in a rock context, and Jack Casady already had a distinctive bass sound. But the Airplane of Balin-Kantner-Kaukonen-Anderson-Casady-Spence is to be distinguished from the Balin-Kantner-Kaukonen-Casady-Slick-Dryden version of the band that would emerge on record five months later chiefly by Balin's dominance. Later, Grace Slick would become the group's vocal and visual focal point. On Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, the Airplane was Balin's group. (Jefferson Airplane Takes Off was released as RCA 3584 on August 15, 1966. It was reissued as RCA 66797 on January 30, 1996, as a CD that contained both the stereo and mono versions, and that added back the track "Runnin' 'Round This World," which had been deleted from all but initial copies due to the sexual and perceived drug references of the line "The nights I've spent with you have been fantastic trips." But the included version still eliminated the word "trips.") ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The one-off reunion of Jefferson Airplane in 1989, which consisted of a tour and a new album, got it about half right, which is to say that the group's live performances were fine, but their self-titled album was a disappointment. Jefferson Airplane had always been a musical collective. Though it was founded by singer Marty Balin in 1965, the band consisted of strong personalities -- guitarists Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen, bass player Jack Casady, and singer Grace Slick (who replaced Signe Anderson in 1967). (Drummer Spencer Dryden, who was part of the group's classic 1967-1969 lineup, was not invited to join the reunion.) All but Casady were songwriters and vocalists, and the albums always represented a mixture of prominent talents. In that sense, nothing had changed 20 years later; Balin, Kantner, Kaukonen, and Slick each got their songs on Jefferson Airplane. And their familiar proclivities remained in place. Kantner's complicated song structures were still at the service of his discursive lyrics, mixing left-wing political sentiments with fanciful personal reflections. Slick's concerns were even more idiosyncratic, as she devoted her lyrical piano ballads to such subjects as the plight of panda bears. Kaukonen's songs were, as usual, showcases for his guitar playing. And Balin was still the romantic heart of the band, willing to lead them through the one outside composition, the pop-ish �True Love," contributed by Toto's Steve Porcaro and David Paich (who were also session musicians on the album) and also happy to recall the past nostalgically in �Summer of Love." But somehow, this collection of oddballs seemed far less compelling than they had in the late 1960s, and Ron Nevison's slick production, which may have been intended to update the sound and give it coherence, was just an annoyance. Thus, Jefferson Airplane, despite some characteristically good and interesting material, failed to make a good and interesting reunion record, and that was that. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Thirty Seconds Over Winterland'
Release Date 1/1/1973
Tracks 7
Label RCA
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What The Critics Say
By the summer of 1972, the Jefferson Airplane were on their final approach to the eventual evolution that would produce Jefferson Starship, arguably the most drastic difference being the absence of Jorma Kaukonen (guitar, vocals) and Jack Casady (bass), both of whom were several years into Hot Tuna, a project that began as a musical diversion for the pair and rapidly developed into a permanent roots rock unit. Released in 1973, Thirty Seconds Over Winterland (cleverly named after the Mervyn LeRoy-directed 1944 film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo) would become the Airplane's swansong. Included were seven tracks taken from the band's last tour of the 1970s, specifically, August 24 and 25 at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago and the last two gigs the Bay Area combo played in its native San Francisco on September 21 and 22, fittingly held at the band's longtime stomping grounds of the Winterland Arena. Only Kaukonen, Casady, and Paul Kantner (guitar, vocals) remained from the first lineup. They are joined by Grace Slick -- who took over from Signe Anderson just prior to the recording of 1967's landmark Surrealistic Pillow -- and violinist Papa John Creach. Former Turtles and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young drummer Johnny Barbata had come aboard in the previous year, and the latest addition was Quicksilver Messenger Service co-founder David Freiberg, whose contributions at the time were primarily vocal. The bulk of the effort was drawn from 1971's Bark and 1972's Long John Silver. Although they were still performing "Somebody to Love," "Volunteers," and "Wooden Ships" in concert, a cursory stab at "Crown of Creation" is the earliest cut on this package that harks back to their acid rock persona. Despite some questionable intonations from Kaukonen on "Have You Seen the Saucers," the opener quickly establishes the Jefferson Airplane's harder edge. Kaukonen's "Feel So Good" is the jewel in this otherwise thorny rock & roll tiara. The tune stretches over ten minutes, spotlighting Casady's quake-inducing contributions and Creach's unmistakable fiddle. Speaking of Papa John, he shines on the propelling "Milk Train," featuring a seminal lead from Slick. An outtake of note from the September 22 show made its way onto the 1992 Jefferson Airplane Loves You box set. Marty Balin returned for the one-off, albeit incendiary, "You Wear Your Dresses Too Short." ~ Lindsay Planer, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The final Jefferson Airplane studio album -- if their half-hearted 'reunion' from 1989 isn't (and really shouldn't be) counted -- presented yet another alteration in the band's lineup. Not only would Long John Silver (1972) be the second project minus co-founder Marty Balin (vocals), who left after Volunteers (1969), but Joey Covington (drums) also split before the long-player was completed, forming his own combo, the short-lived Black Kangaroo. Covington contributes to a pair of Paul Kantner's (guitar/vocals) better offerings "Twilight Double Leader" and "Story of Jesus," while Hot Tuna kinsman Sammy Piazza (drums) lends a hand to Jorma Kaukonen's (guitar/vocals) whimsical "Trial by Fire." Eventually, Turtles' and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young percussionist John Barbata (drums) would fill the drummer's stool for the remainder of the Airplane's rapid descent. He would likewise make the transition alongside Kantner, Grace Slick (piano/vocals) and Papa John Creach (violin) into the brave new world of Jefferson Starship. Even more so than on their previous platter, Bark (1971), the material featured on Long John Silver rather blatantly exposes the two disparate factions to have emerged from the once unified Airplane. The Kaukonen/Jack Casady (bass) offshoot -- à la Hot Tuna -- and Kantner/Slick, whose Blows Against the Empire (1970) from two years earlier clearly pointed to the exceedingly cerebral approach evident on Slick's indistinct "Aerie (Gang of Eagles)" and "Easter?," or the mid-tempo meandering of Kantner's "Alexander the Medium." The edgy, blues-infused rocker "Milk Train" is one of the few standouts on Long John Silver, giving Creach a platform for his ever-adaptable and soaring fiddle. Quite possibly the heaviest selection on the package is the Slick/Kaukonen co-composition "Eat Starch Mom." Appropriately, it concludes the effort on a positive charge with the Airplane hitting on all cylinders before landing the craft (for all intents and purposes) the last time. When the LP hit store shelves in the summer of 1972, it became instantly notorious for the cover that transformed into a cigar (read: stash) box. The inner sleeve went as far as reproducing the image of tightly compressed domestic ganja, replete with sticks, seeds and stems. ~ Lindsay Planer, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Bark, Jefferson Airplane's seventh album, was an album of firsts: it was the first Airplane album in almost two years; the first made after the arrival of violinist Papa John Creach and the departure of band founder Marty Balin; the first to be released on the group's own Grunt Records label. It was also the first Airplane album made after the onset of that familiar rock group disease, solo career-itis. Rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner had released his Blows Against the Empire, and Hot Tuna, the band formed by lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady, had released two albums since the last Airplane group release, Volunteers. Bark, perhaps as a result, was not so much a group record as a bunch of songs made by alternating solo artists with backup by the other group members. (Did someone say, "White Album"?) Kantner's tunes were science-fiction epics reminiscent of Blows; Kaukonen's "Feel So Good" and the instrumental "Wild Turkey" were indistinguishable from Hot Tuna music, while his lilting ballad "Third Week in the Chelsea" was nothing less than his resignation from the band, rendered in song; and Grace Slick's two contributions were characteristically idiosyncratic. The album's surprise was "Pretty as You Feel," a chart single that emerged out of a jam between new drummer Joey Covington, Casady, and Kaukonen. All of which is to say that there were some excellent songs on Bark (as well as some mediocre ones), even if the whole added up to less than the sum of the parts. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Controversial at the time, delayed because of fights with the record company over lyrical content and the original title (Volunteers of America), Volunteers was a powerful release that neatly closed out and wrapped up the '60s. Here, the Jefferson Airplane presents itself in full revolutionary rhetoric, issuing a call to "tear down the walls" and "get it on together." "We Can Be Together" and "Volunteers" bookend the album, offering musical variations on the same chord progression and lyrical variations on the same theme. Between these politically charged rock anthems, the band offers a mix of words and music that reflect the competing ideals of simplicity and getting "back to the earth," and overthrowing greed and exploitation through political activism, adding a healthy dollop of psychedelic sci-fi for texture. Guitarist Jorma Kaukonen's beautiful arrangement of the traditional "Good Shepherd" is a standout here, and Jerry Garcia's pedal steel guitar gives "The Farm" an appropriately rural feel. The band's version of "Wooden Ships" is much more eerie than that released earlier in the year by Crosby, Stills & Nash. Oblique psychedelia is offered here via Grace Slick's "Hey Frederick" and ecologically tinged "Eskimo Blue Day." Drummer Spencer Dryden gives an inside look at the state of the band in the country singalong "A Song for All Seasons." The musical arrangements here are quite potent. Nicky Hopkins' distinctive piano highlights a number of tracks, and Kaukonen's razor-toned lead guitar is the recording's unifying force, blazing through the mix, giving the album its distinctive sound. Although the political bent of the lyrics may seem dated to some, listening to Volunteers is like opening a time capsule on the end of an era, a time when young people still believed music had the power to change the world. ~ Jim Newsom, All Music Guide
'Bless Its Pointed Little Head'
Release Date 1/1/1969
Tracks 10
Label RCA
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Jefferson Airplane's first live album demonstrated the group's development as concert performers, taking a number of songs that had been performed in concise, pop-oriented versions on their early albums -- "3/5's of a Mile in 10 Seconds," "Somebody to Love," "It's No Secret," "Plastic Fantastic Lover" -- and rendering them in arrangements that were longer, harder rocking, and more densely textured, especially in terms of the guitar and basslines constructed by Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady. The group's three-part vocal harmonizing and dueling was on display during such songs as a nearly seven-minute version of Fred Neil's folk-blues standard "The Other Side of This Life," here transformed into a swirling rocker. The album emphasized the talents of Kaukonen and singer Marty Balin over the team of Paul Kantner and Grace Slick, who had tended to dominate recent records: the blues song "Rock Me Baby" was a dry run for Hot Tuna, the band Kaukonen and Casady would form in two years, and Balin turned in powerful vocal performances on several of his own compositions, notably "It's No Secret." Jefferson Airplane was still at its best in concise, driving numbers, rather than in the jams on Donovan's "Fat Angel" (running 7:35) or the group improv "Bear Melt" (11:21); they were just too intense to stretch out comfortably. But Bless Its Pointed Little Head served an important function in the group's discography, demonstrating that their live work had a distinctly different focus and flavor from their studio recordings. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The group's fourth album, appearing ten months following After Bathing at Baxter's, isn't the same kind of leap forward that Baxter's represented from Surrealistic Pillow. Indeed, in many ways, Crown of Creation is a more conservative album stylistically, opening with "Lather," a Grace Slick original that was one of the group's very last forays (and certainly their last prominent one) into a folk idiom. Much of what follows is a lot more based in electric rock, as well as steeped in elements of science fiction (specifically author John Wyndham's book The Chrysalids) in several places, but Crown of Creation was still deliberately more accessible musically than its predecessor, even as the playing became more bold and daring within more traditional song structures. Jack Casady by this time had developed one of the most prominent and distinctive bass sounds in American rock, as identifiable (if not quite as bracing) as John Entwistle's was with the Who, as demonstrated on "In Time," "Star Track," "Share a Little Joke," "If You Feel," (where he's practically a second lead instrument), and the title song, and Jorma Kaukonen's slashing, angular guitar attack was continually surprising as his snaking lead guitar parts wended their way through "Star Track" and "Share a Little Joke." The album also reflected the shifting landscape of West Coast music with its inclusion of "Triad," a David Crosby song that Crosby's own group, the Byrds, had refused to release -- its presence (the only extant version of the song for a number of years) was a forerunner of the sound that would later be heard on Crosby's own debut solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name (on which Slick, Paul Kantner, and Casady would appear). The overall album captured the group's rapidly evolving, very heavy live sound within the confines of some fairly traditional song structures, and left ample room for Slick and Marty Balin to express themselves vocally, with Balin turning in one of his most heartfelt and moving performances on "If You Feel." "Ice Cream Phoenix" pulses with energy and "Greasy Heart" became a concert standard for the group -- the studio original of the latter is notable for Slick's most powerful vocal performance since "Somebody to Love." And the album's big finish, "The House at Pooneil Corners," seemed to fire on all cylinders, their amps cranked up to ten (maybe 11 for Casady), and Balin, Slick, and Kantner stretching out on the disjointed yet oddly compelling tune and lyrics. It didn't work 100 percent, but it made for a shattering finish to the album. Crown of Creation has been reissued on CD several times, including a Mobile Fidelity audiophile edition at the start of the '90s, but in 2003, RCA released a remastered edition with four bonus tracks from the same sessions including the mono single mix of "Share a Little Joke," the previously unreleased 8 minute "The Saga of Sydney Spacepig," Spencer Dryden's co-authored "Ribump Ba Bap Dum Dum," which is a spaced-out assembly of noises, effects, and pop-culture catch-phrases, and the more accessible "Would You Like a Snack?," an atonal piece of musical scatology featuring Grace Slick and co-authored by Slick and Frank Zappa. ~ Bruce Eder & Al Campbell , All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The second album by Jefferson Airplane, Surrealistic Pillow was a groundbreaking piece of folk-rock-based psychedelia, and it hit -- literally -- like a shot heard round the world; where the later efforts from bands like the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and especially, the Charlatans, were initially not too much more than cult successes, Surrealistic Pillow rode the pop charts for most of 1967, soaring into that rarefied Top Five region occupied by the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and so on, to which few American rock acts apart from the Byrds had been able to lay claim since 1964. And decades later the album still comes off as strong as any of those artists' best work. From the Top Ten singles "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" to the sublime "Embryonic Journey," the sensibilities are fierce, the material manages to be both melodic and complex (and it rocks, too), and the performances, sparked by new member Grace Slick on most of the lead vocals, are inspired, helped along by Jerry Garcia (serving as spiritual and musical advisor and sometimes guitarist). Every song is a perfectly cut diamond, too perfect in the eyes of the bandmembers, who felt that following the direction of producer Rick Jarrard and working within three- and four-minute running times, and delivering carefully sung accompaniments and succinct solos, resulted in a record that didn't represent their real sound. Regardless, they did wonderful things with the music within that framework, and the only pity is that RCA didn't record for official release any of the group's shows from the same era, when this material made up the bulk of their repertory. That way the live versions, with the band's creativity unrestricted, could be compared and contrasted with the record. The songwriting was spread around between Marty Balin, Slick, Paul Kantner, and Jorma Kaukonen, and Slick and Balin (who never had a prettier song than "Today," which he'd actually written for Tony Bennett) shared the vocals; the whole album was resplendent in a happy balance of all of these creative elements, before excessive experimentation (musical and chemical) began affecting the band's ability to do a straightforward song. The group never made a better album, and few artists from the era ever did. [Surrealistic Pillow on CD has been problematic -- actually, make that a real pain in the ass. It's been reissued numerous times on compact disc, in distinctly different editions -- a plain 11-song disc from the 1980s that sounded wretched and was an embarrassment; a high-priced RCA-BMG gold-disc upgrade, with significantly better sound from the mid-'90s that encompassed the stereo and mono mixes of the album; a European version from 2000/2001 (with four bonus tracks but no mono mix or liner notes) that got into the U.S. as an import; a U.S.-issued 2001 upgrade, initially available in the bizarre four-CD box Ignition, which encompassed the stereo and mono mixes in a brighter, sharper, louder remastering than the 1996 version, but still -- in some listeners' eyes -- lacking the presence and the soaring sound of the original LP; and a 2003 reissue (on the BMG Heritage label), mastered by renowned reissue producer Bob Irwin (of Sundazed Records fame), including the mono single versions of "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love," along with the related bonus tracks "Come Back Baby," "In the Morning," "J.P.P. McStep B. Blues," and "Go to Her," which have previously been scattered around various anthologies and other expanded editions. Those tracks generally push Kaukonen even more to the fore and give the balance of the material a bluesier feel. And there's an uncredited "hidden" bonus cut, an instrumental of "D.C.B.A. - 25."] ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
