Woodstock Day 2: "It's A Bird!" "No, It's Jefferson Airplane!"

Grace Slick introduced the band with the words: "Alright friends, you have seen the heavy groups, now you'll see morning maniac music, believe me..."

The first of the San Francisco psychedelic bands to achieve mainstream and commercial success, Jefferson Airplane played at Woodstock on August 17th about 8 am, though they were originally scheduled as the headliner for Saturday August 16th. Their music is a mixture of folk, acid rock, and blues rock and it's definitely got a unique sound since they usually have two or three vocals at the same time. One of their great hits is "White Rabbit" which takes a lot of references from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass while also referring to the hallucinogenic feelings derived from LSD and 'shrooms. Most artists in the psych rock genre used drugs as a mind-expanding social experiment, not just because they could.

In 1969, Jefferson Airplane consisted of Grace Slick for vocals, Spencer Dryden on drums, Paul Kanter and Jorma Kaukonen on guitar, Marty Balin on back-up vocals and guitar, and Jack Casady on bass. Slick was instrumental to their commercial breakthrough because of how well her voice worked in psychedelic songs and how well it complemented Balin's voice.

Jefferson Airplane, 1966 (Top Left to Bottom Right): Casady, Slick, Balin, Kaukonen, Kanter, and Dryden.

Airplane had some great hits like "Somebody to Love" (also off Surrealistic Pillow - the key album to The Summer of Love [yet another story to discuss at another time]), "Volunteers," "She Has Funny Cars," and "Today." A lot of their songs are quite good and all their albums are easy front-to-back listens.

The Airplane set at Woodstock

Around 1970, Jefferson Airplane started to lose steam and Paul Kanter formed the prototype for Jefferson Starship which, at the time, included Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann (all from The Grateful Dead), David Crosby, Graham Nash (from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), Grace Slick, and Jack Casady (from Airplane). However, the Airplane members were still playing in Jefferson Starship simultaneously until Airplane's official break-up in 1974.

So what's on today's to-do list? Go listen to Surrealistic Pillow and understand the beauty of Jefferson Airplane. You'll thank me later.