Jefferson Airplane were not the sole exemplars of 1960s Californian acid rock; the Grateful Dead could equally claim the mantle of house band to the Summer of Love. Airplane's instrumentation was conventional, comprising mainly vocal harmonies, guitars, bass and drums. The band drew upon the folk traditions of The Weavers, the legendary bluesmen Gary Davis and B.B. King, improvisational masters from Miles Davis to Cream, even literary visionaries such as James Joyce and Isaac Asimov.
Yet fusing together these influences in the creative furnace of San Francisco between 1966 and 1970, Jefferson Airplane's classic lineup – one ex-model, two ex-folkies, one ex-jazzer and two ex-D.C. guitarslingers – crafted music that was at once powerful, innovative and beautiful. Birthed in the dizzy hippie heartland of Haight-Ashbury, no other group were so wedded to their environment, winning international acclaim with two anthemic hit singles even as they impishly prodded the morés of middle Amerika. A musical and social force of nature, Airplane mirrored the psychedelic dream, burning higher, fiercer and brighter than any of their contemporaries.
Combining a concise history of this magnificent band and their milieu with comprehensive and entertaining reviews of all their recordings, this is the most accessible book on the band yet written.
Richard Butterworth's grown-up career began in advertising, first as a paste-up artist, then as a graphic designer. Finally settling on copywriting, for years he reaped the pleasures and pains of freelancing. But as a lifelong believer in the healing and redemptive power of music, he knew humankind's highest art form would eventually saddle up and ride him into the sunset. Today Richard lives in Cornwall, UK, with his partner Sue, two golden retrievers, a dusty tenor saxophone and far too many Jefferson Airplane bootlegs. He's still writing about the music he loved before he was a grown-up.
