Jefferson Airplane - Journey (The Best Of) EAC-FLAC RePoPo

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Jefferson Airplane - Journey (The Best Of)
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CD: Jefferson Airplane - The best of Jefferson Airplane [1967-1974]
track 21 name altered to be correct YEAR: 1996

01. Embryonic Journey [1967] [0:01:56.63]
02. High Flyin' Bird [1974] [0:02:35.10]
03. It's No Secret [1966] [0:02:40.45]
04. Come Up The Years [1966] [0:02:33.12]
05. Somebody To Love [1967] [0:03:00.35]
06. Blues From An Airplane [1966] [0:02:12.13]
07. White Rabbit [1967] [0:02:34.20]
08. Plastic Fantastic Lover [1967] [0:02:39.57]
09. Aerie (Gang Of Eagles) [1972] [0:03:51.73]
10. The Ballad Of You And Me And Pooneil [1967] [0:04:38.00]
11. Crown Of Creation [1968] [0:02:56.40]
12. Lather [1968] [0:02:58.35]
13. The Last Wall Of The Castle [1967] [0:02:42.32]
14. Greasy Heart [1968] [0:03:24.53]
15. Volunteers [1969] [0:02:10.30]
16. When The Earth Moves Again [1973] [0:03:56.10]
17. Triad [1969] [0:04:58.20]
18. We Can Be Together [1969] [0:05:51.00]
19. Wooden Ships [1969] [0:06:25.42]
20. Milk Train (Live) [1973] [0:03:31.58]
21. Have You Seen The Saucers (Live) [1974] [0:04:11.50]

THE ALLMUSIC BIOGRAPHY
by William Ruhlmann

Jefferson Airplane was the first of the San Francisco psychedelic rock groups of
the 1960s to achieve national recognition. Although the Grateful Dead ultimately
proved more long-lived and popular, Jefferson Airplane defined the San Francisco
sound in the 1960s, with the acid rock guitar playing of Jorma Kaukonen and the
soaring twin vocals of Grace Slick and Marty Balin, scoring hit singles and
looking out from the covers of national magazines. They epitomized the drug-
taking hippie ethos as well as the left-wing, antiwar political movement of
their time, and their history was one of controversy along with hit records.
Their personal interactions mirrored those times; the group was a collective
with shifting alliances, in which leaders emerged and retreated. But for all the
turmoil, Jefferson Airplane was remarkably productive between 1965 and 1972.
They toured regularly, being the only band to play at all the major '60s rock
festivals -- Monterey, Woodstock, even Altamont -- and they released seven
studio albums, five of which went gold, plus two live LPs and a million-selling
hits collection that chronicled their eight chart singles. Rather than formally
breaking up, they mutated into other configurations, Hot Tuna and Jefferson
Starship, and went on to further success in the 1970s and '80s, before reuniting
for an album and tour in 1989.



The initial idea for the group that became Jefferson Airplane came from 23-year
-old Marty Balin (born Martyn Jerel Buchwald in Cincinnati, OH, January 30,
1942), a San Francisco-raised singer who had recorded unsuccessfully for
Challenge Records in 1962 and been a member of a folk group called the Town
Criers in 1963-1964. With the Beatles-led British Invasion of 1964, Balin saw
the merging of folk with rock in early 1965 and decided to form a group to play
the hybrid style as well as open a club for the group to play in. He interested
three investors in converting a pizza restaurant on Fillmore Street into a 100-
seat venue called the Matrix, and he began picking potential bandmembers from
among the musicians at a folk club called the Drinking Gourd. His first recruit
was rhythm guitarist/singer Paul Kantner (born Paul Lorin Kantner in San
Francisco, CA, March 17, 1941), who in turn recommended lead guitarist/singer
Jorma Kaukonen (born Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen in Washington, D.C., December 23,
1940). Balin, who possessed a keening tenor, wanted a complementary powerful
female voice for the group and found it in Signe Toly (born Signe Ann Toly in
Seattle, WA, September 15, 1941). The six-piece band was completed by bass
player Bob Harvey and drummer Jerry Peloquin. The group's unusual name was
suggested by Kaukonen, who had once jokingly been dubbed "Blind Thomas Jefferson
Airplane" by a friend in reference to the blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson.



Jefferson Airplane made their debut at the Matrix on August 13, 1965, and began
performing at the club regularly. They attracted favorable press attention,
which -- at a time when folk-rock performers like Sonny & Cher, We Five, Bob
Dylan, the Byrds, the Beau Brummels, and the Turtles were all over the charts --
led to record company interest. By September, Jefferson Airplane was being wooed
by several labels. At the same time, the band was already undergoing changes.
Peloquin was fired and replaced by Skip Spence (born Alexander Lee Spence, Jr.
in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, on April 18, 1946; died in Santa Cruz, CA, April
16, 1999). Spence considered himself a guitarist, not a drummer, but he had some
drumming experience. Also in September, Signe Toly married Jerry Anderson, who
handled lights at the Matrix, becoming known as Signe Anderson. In October,
Harvey was fired and replaced by Jack Casady (born John William Casady in
Washington, D.C., April 13, 1944), a friend of Kaukonen's. On November 15, 1965,
this lineup -- Balin, Kantner, Anderson, Kaukonen, Spence, and Casady -- signed
to RCA Victor Records. They had their first recording session in Los Angeles on
December 16, and RCA released their debut single, Balin's composition "It's No
Secret," in February 1966; it did not chart. Meanwhile, Jefferson Airplane began
to appear at more prestigious venues in San Francisco and even to tour outside
the Bay Area. In May 1966, Anderson gave birth to a daughter, and caring for the
child while performing with the band became a challenge. Meanwhile, Spence
became increasingly unreliable as his appetite for drugs increased, and he was
replaced in June by session drummer Spencer Dryden (born Spencer Dryden Wheeler
in New York, April 7, 1938; died in Petaluma, CA, January 11, 2005). Spence went
on to form the band Moby Grape.



Following a second non-charting single, Balin and Kantner's "Come Up the Years,"
in July, Jefferson Airplane released their debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Takes
Off, on August 15, 1966, just over a year after the band's debut. The album had
modest sales, peaking at only number 128 during 11 weeks on the Billboard chart.
(A third single, Balin and Kantner's "Bringing Me Down," was released from the
album, but did not chart.) At this point, Anderson's commitment to her family
caused her departure from the group. Jefferson Airplane was able to find a
strong replacement for her in Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing in or near
Chicago, IL, October 30, 1939), the lead singer for the San Francisco rock band
the Great Society, which happened to be in the process of breaking up at the
same time. Slick joined Jefferson Airplane in mid-October 1966, and by the end
of the month was with them in the recording studio. She brought with her two
songs from the Great Society repertoire: the rock tune "Somebody to Love,"
written by her brother-in-law Darby Slick, the Great Society's guitarist, and
her own composition, the ballad "White Rabbit," set to a bolero tempo, which
used imagery from Alice in Wonderland to discuss the impact of psychedelic
drugs. Both songs were recorded for Jefferson Airplane's second album,
Surrealistic Pillow.



RCA did not release either of them as the advance single from the album, opting
instead for the departed Spence's "My Best Friend" in January 1967; it became
the group's fourth single to miss the charts. Surrealistic Pillow followed in
February. It debuted in the charts the last week of March, and its progress was
speeded by the release of "Somebody to Love," the first Jefferson Airplane
single to feature Grace Slick as lead vocalist. By early May, both the album and
single were in the Top 40 of their respective charts; a month later, both were
in the Top Ten. With that, RCA released "White Rabbit" as a single, and it too
reached the Top Ten. Surrealistic Pillow became Jefferson Airplane's first gold
album in July.



Meanwhile, the band, which, naturally, had attracted national media attention
(much of it focusing on Slick's photogenic looks), began recording a new album
and continued to tour. On June 17, 1967, they performed at the Monterey
International Pop Festival, which was celebrated for introducing many of the new
San Francisco rock bands (as well as the Jimi Hendrix Experience) and launching
the "Summer of Love" that the season was touted to be in 1967. Jefferson
Airplane's performance was filmed and recorded. Two songs from their show, "High
Flying Bird" and "Today," were featured in the documentary film Monterey Pop,
released in 1968. The concert recording was heavily bootlegged and over the
years has turned up on numerous gray-market releases as well.



The nature of Jefferson Airplane's commercial breakthrough, and the nature of
the band itself, restricted their commercial appeal thereafter. AM Top 40 radio,
in particular, became wary of a group that had scored a hit with a song widely
derided for its drug references, and Jefferson Airplane never again enjoyed the
kind of widespread radio support they would have needed to score more Top Ten
hits. At the same time, the group did not think of itself as a hitmaking
machine, and its recordings were becoming more adventurous. Kantner's "The
Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil," the band's new single released in August,
featured him as lead singer with Slick and Balin harmonizing. It reached number
42 on the strength of the band's prominence, but they never again crossed the
halfway mark in the Hot 100. At the same time, the rise of FM radio, attracted
to longer cuts and the kind of experimental work the group was starting to do,
gave them a new way of exposing their music. Nevertheless, their third album,
After Bathing at Baxter's, its songs arranged into lengthy suites, was not as
successful as Surrealistic Pillow when it appeared on November 27, 1967,
reaching the Top 20 but failing to go gold. Also notable was the diminished
participation of Marty Balin, who co-wrote only one song, and now was being
marginalized in the group he had founded.



After Kantner's "Watch Her Ride," released as a single from After Bathing at
Baxter's, stalled at number 61, RCA released a new Jefferson Airplane single
written and sung by Slick in the spring of 1968. But radio was even more
resistant, and "Greasy Heart" stopped at number 98. It was included in the
band's fourth album, Crown of Creation, released in August. The title track got
to number 64 as a single, and the LP, which featured more concise, less
experimental tracks than After Bathing at Baxter's, marked a resurgence in the
group's commercial success, reaching the Top Ten and eventually going gold.
Jefferson Airplane's live appeal was chronicled on the concert album Bless Its
Pointed Little Head, released in February 1969. In August, the group appeared at
the Woodstock festival, and it was featured on the million-selling triple-LP
soundtrack album to the resulting film in 1970, though it did not appear
onscreen in the version initially released. The band's fifth studio album,
Volunteers, appeared in October 1969 as its title song became a minor singles
chart entry. Volunteers stopped short of the Top Ten, but it went gold in three
months. On December 6, 1969, the band played at the Rolling Stones' disastrous
Altamont free concert in California, its performance (complete with Balin's
beating at the hands of Hell's Angels) captured in the 1970 documentary film
Gimme Shelter.



Jefferson Airplane released one more single, the non-charting marijuana anthem
"Mexico," in 1970 in its familiar configuration, but the turn of the 1970s
brought great changes in the group. Already, Kaukonen and Casady, with assorted
sidemen, had begun to play separately as Hot Tuna while maintaining their
membership in Jefferson Airplane; they had recorded shows the previous September
for a self-titled debut album issued in May 1970. Spencer Dryden was fired early
in the year and replaced by drummer Joey Covington (born Joseph Michno in
Johnston, PA, in 1945). At shows performed in October 1970, violinist Papa John
Creach, who had been performing with Hot Tuna, first played with Jefferson
Airplane. Creach (born John Henry Creach in Beaver Falls, PA, May 18, 1917; died
February 22, 1994) was a journeyman musician decades older than any of the other
members of Jefferson Airplane, and his recruitment was evidence of the ways in
which the band's approach was changing. An even more radical change was the
departure of Marty Balin, who left the band at the end of the fall tour in
November. (His resignation was formally announced in April 1971.)



Jefferson Airplane did not have a new album ready for release in 1970, and RCA
filled the gap with a compilation, sarcastically dubbed The Worst of Jefferson
Airplane and released in November. The album went gold quickly and was later
certified platinum. Issued on its heels was Paul Kantner's debut solo album,
Blows Against the Empire, featuring most of the members of Jefferson Airplane as
well as various other musical friends. Due to that long list of sidemen and the
album's science fiction theme about a group of hippies hijacking a spaceship,
Kantner co-billed the disc to "Jefferson Starship." As yet, there was no such
entity, but Kantner would use the name for a real band later.



Having completed their recording commitment to RCA, Jefferson Airplane shopped
for a new label, but was wooed back when RCA offered them their own imprint,
Grunt Records. Grunt bowed with the release of the sixth Jefferson Airplane
studio album, Bark, in August 1971. The album stopped just short of the Top Ten
and quickly went gold. Covington, Casady, and Kaukonen's "Pretty as You Feel,"
later issued as a single, gave the band its final placing in the Hot 100 at
number 60 early in 1972. Grunt issued albums by bandmembers including Creach and
Hot Tuna, as well as discs by friends, but Jefferson Airplane remained its most
successful act.



In the early '70s, the members of Jefferson Airplane became increasingly
preoccupied by their side projects. Hot Tuna, having issued a second live album,
First Pull Up, Then Pull Down, in the spring of 1971, put out their first studio
effort, Burgers, in February 1972. Kantner and Slick, who had become a couple
and had a child, China Ka