Showing posts with label obituary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obituary. Show all posts

Thursday, 21 February 2019

A Tribute To Peter Tork




You can now buy 'Every Step Of The Way - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Monkees' in e-book form by clicking here!






It is with a sad heart that we tell you the AAA has lost another of its key members, as guitarist, bassist, pianist, banjo-ist, actor and all-round nice guy Peter Tork has left us, joining Davy in that great Circle Sky up there full of musicians jamming and swapping stories. There are hundreds if not thousands of stories going round social media about what an under-rated talent he was, what a musician Peter could be, what a great actor he was. Most of all though people have been passing on stories about what a wonderfully warm, kind and gentle soul he was. I am too sad to start a proper obituary from scratch but wanted to do something - as all the Monkees biographies are ready for the forthcoming Alan's Album Archives book 'Every Step Of The Way' it seemed easiest to just post that and let Peter's incredible life speak for itself, with five key Peter Tork moments added at the bottom. Rest in Peace dear Peter - and oh how we will miss you!

Poor Peter was clearly the most nervous Monkee at the audition tapes for the series. Where Mike is all false confidence, Micky is nervous energy and Davy is pure charm, Peter is natural throughout, never quite in control of his body and yet still naturally funny with every move he makes. In a way his appearance at the auditions was the unlikeliest of the four. Though an accomplished musician, with the longest pedigree of making music of any of the four, his usual crowd consisted of a handful of folk-lovers, a few supportive peers and the staff down at his local folk club. He'd certainly never played for two Hollywood producers before and, like Mike, he really really needed this job. Born in Columbia, Washington (though oddly many Monkee fanzines made out he was born in New York City), Peter was the son of an economics professor at Connecticut University. Though given more support in his musical ambitions than Mike or Davy were, Peter was being groomed for a very different sort of life - he was classically trained in several instruments including the piano (which is where he first fell in love with his favourite composer Bach, see [92] ‘Two Part Invention In F Major’), the guitar, the bass and the banjo, all of which Peter will go on to play with The Monkees. Peter's parents were pleased at his progress - but not the direction he intended to take it, with Peter leaving college to become part of the growing folk club scene and moving to Greenwich Village (where, to calm parental fears, he stayed with his beloved Grandma - well loved by fans who used to write to her as Peter's proudest relative who ran his fanclub for him for a time).

There were, of course, many dozens if not hundreds of young Americans all doing the same thing, so musical jobs were few and far between - most of the money Peter made in his pre-Monkee days were from washing dishes rather than performing. However those that did hear Peter play realised what a talent he had; particularly his peers. One of Peter's closest friends in the mid-1960s was Stephen Stills, a singer-songwriter who'd also got into music through the folk scene and the pair finally met after weeks of the one being mistaken for the other, both men having similar shaggy blonde hair and more often than not a guitar slung over their backs while washing dishes for a living. It was Stills who heard about the Monkees audition after reading the advert and he got through to near the end of the auditions. With his own recordings behind him as part of folk troupe 'The Au Go Go Singers' plus a bit of acting experience at high school and an even bigger collection of songs ready to record than Nesmith, Stills was clearly the sort of youth the Monkees advert was intended to attract. However sticking points (take your pick from the following reasons given down the years, of which all or none may have been true - Stills' balding hair and bad teeth, the fact he was already tied to a different publishing company or his adamant refusal that he would be playing on the records come what may) meant he was reluctantly turned down. 'Gee, if only there was somebody like you with better hair and no publishing deal they'd be a shoo-in' Bert and Bob said to him candidly one day. 'Well, I've got a friend whose always being mistaken for me named Peter and he has none of those problems - I'll see if he's interested' was Stephen's friendly gesture. Peter was exactly what the Monkees production team was looking for, perfect for their missing fourth 'quiet and dumb' character, even though Peter - like his professor father - was in truth well read and highly intelligent (Peter was the Monkee who varied most from his ‘character’ in real life, but that wasn’t considered a problem back in 1966; it was only an acting part after all). Peter was arguably the most naturally funny Monkee of the four, with a string of witty quips and funny faces that often found their way into the scripts (Micky too, though he was usually more in character than person where he was unusually shy and uncomfortable as himself - as the 'minute shorts' testify).

However The Monkees wasn't always what Peter had been looking for. While Davy shone, Micky put up with and Mike tried to change the idea of The Monkees being backed by session musicians, Tork (having first agreed to shorten his birth name of 'Thorkelson') was the most reluctant to have other people pay ‘his’ music - and as the least commercial sounding of the four, also the least used. Don Kirshner didn't like his voice for the band's pop records, which sounded like exactly like what it was - a folk voice, built for Greenwich Village and hardened after several years' worth of performances there. Peter never quite knew what he was singing up to, recalling years later turning up happily to the first Monkee session with a guitar, only to be told his input wouldn't be needed and multiple guitar players had been hired to play 'his' part. With less to do than the others in the TV series too (though Peter, like Micky, is one of only two Monkees to appear in all fifty-eight episodes he's often the one kidnapped/left behind/hypnotised midway through the episodes and though even I'm not enough of an anorak to add up every line each Monkees spoke I'm willing to bet he had a lot less to say than the others). In a way the 'Peter' for the series was written around the character he 'put on' in his surviving screen tests, painfully shy and letting his guitar do most of the talking. Being given the daft novelty song 'Your Auntie Grizelda' as his first big musical debut must also have rankled with someone who'd been putting his own songs together since his teenage years (many of the songs Peter released with The Monkees are older works, with Tork taking more time over his songs than his colleagues, especially Mike, with ‘Can You Dig It?’ , for example, taking eight years to create).

For Peter the greatest Monkee moment wasn't the huge-selling money-making singles or the Emmy-award winning TV series but the moment when, in March 1967, The Monkees were 'allowed' to make their own music for the first time. 'Headquarters' was the perfect environment for the young instrumentalist who always longed to be in a ‘real’ band, who at last got something decent to sing (his vocal on the second half of 'Shades Of Grey' is amongst the best work any of The Monkees ever did), something decent to play (the album is full of Peter's groovy piano, banjo, bass and guitar skills as Tork filled in whatever gaps was needed in the sound) and wrote something more than a little decent of his own (the excellent 'For Pete's Sake', sensibly chosen for the music that played over the closing credits on the TV show's second season). Memorable performances include the piano part on  'Daydream Believer', the funky bass on 'Pleasant Valley Sunday' and the French Horn part on 'Shades Of Grey' (not played by but certainly notated by Peter, using his classical skills at last) - and a banjo part on George Harrison's 'Wonderwall' soundtrack, recorded during The Monkees' tour of Britain in mid-1967 (the bits of the record not recorded in India in case you hadn't guessed; sadly while Peter's playing is heard in the film it's not on the soundtrack album). The Monkees recorded fourth album 'Pisces, Aquarius' in a similar vein but minus Micky's drumming (with Peter scoring a second passionate released vocal, this time opposite Micky on 'Words') and without Peter's songs. When the TV series ended in 1968 and The Monkees were encouraged to produce their own sessions, it seemed as if Peter would get another big break and across 1968 Peter spent more time in the studio than any of the others. However a great big bunch of his promising compositions were left on the cutting room floor, with his only contribution to fifth album 'Birds, Bees and Monkees' being a short piano part and appearing on the cover. Peter was fed-up, angry that the band had gone back to using session men after winning their hard-won 'revolution' and became the first Monkee to quit, handing in his notice when his contract came up for renewal at the end of 1968. His twin leaving presents was the 'Head' film project (which saw the release of Peter's second and third song for The Monkees - despite the soundtrack album only containing seven actual 'songs' to begin with!) and the TV special 'Thirty Three and a Third' broadcast in Easter 1969. Peter's last moment as a Monkee is playing a brief snatch of his beloved Bach before a mammoth monkeynuts twenty minute performance of 'Mike's 'Listen To The Band' - with The Monkees a 'real' band performing live at last - and the sarcastic over-credit performance of 'California, Here It Comes' as he bids the band goodbye. Suddenly, after a whirlwind two and a half years filled with colour and noise and recordings and rehearsals and filming dates, there was nothing to fill the void. Peter was alone.

Well, nearly nothing and Peter wasn’t quite alone. One of Peter's last and most infamous songs for The Monkees was 'Lady's Baby' about Peter's longterm girlfriend Karen and their son Justin. Peter, a practicing hippie, didn't just keep to one girlfriend though and still spent time with Reine Stewart, who was a promising drummer and one of the 'extras' seen in the 'Thirty -Three' TV special. The pair naturally formed a band named 'Release' but the moniker was optimistic as, with The Monkees' name now mud, no record company wanted to 'release' anything by the least profiled ex-Monkee. The band recorded demos (which have never been heard but do exist according to Peter) and came close to being hired as the backing band for another girlfriend, Judy Mayhan, who did win a recording contract of her own. Peter had stayed closer to Bert and Bob than the other band members - he had been the only Monkee to show up for work on the first day of shooting 'Head' when the others went on 'strike' - and was invited to submit a song to the soundtrack of their sequel 'Easy Rider'; alas this never happened either. With most of his Monkee money spent on parties and friends in need, Peter couldn't finance his new band anymore and tried to make it as a solo act. He formed his own production team ‘The Breakthrough Influence Company’, and though they did influence people (one of Peter's talent spotting trips saw him try to promote future Little Feat star Lowell George, while Peter also helped manage Micky's 1971 'comeback' single 'Easy On You'), the company never did breakthrough and Peter was left nearly bankrupt, forced to sell his house (the partying capital of Laurel Canyon across the second half of the 1960s) just as Reine fell pregnant. David Crosby, who was now working with Stephen Stills, gave the couple his basement to help out (where the pair no doubt they moaned about Stills long into the night!) - later getting a downpayment on his famous boat The Mayan in return - but without the protective series of managers and assistants to keep the Monkees happy and no income, Peter was in trouble.

Things went from bad to worse when Peter was busted for drugs and spent three months inside a state prison in Oklahoma - though Peter had been smoking light drugs since before The Monkees he literally couldn't get arrested then (half of Greeenwich Village would have been inside) and his Monkee power had protected him till now. Moving to Fairfax, California, on release Peter started singing in the local Fairfax Street Choir and played guitar in a blues band named Osceola. Having parted with Reine and their daughter Hallie, Peter married second wife Barbara Iannoli in 1975 and the couple had a son, Ivan, later that year. It was a chance to begin again and Peter became a family man, teaching at a school in Santa Monica for three years (primarily music but also maths, history, French and social sciences, while Peter also filled in as a basketball coach when the PE teacher was away). Peter reunited with Micky and Davy for the fanclub reunion single 'Christmas Is My Time Of Year' at the end of 1976, but the reunion was a little too soon for public sympathy and barely anyone noticed it. However it did put Peter back in music circles again and though it took another four years he found himself invited to submit some demos for the major record label Sire in 1980. For Peter's big break he hired a local band he'd met named Cottonmouth and recorded six songs, two new tracks (including 'Since You Went Away' a cover song he associated with the split with Reine, later re-recorded for 'Pool It!' in 1986) and two Monkee covers sung in a folky style 'Pleasant Valley Sunday' and 'Shades Of Grey'. Alas Sire president of the time Seymour Stein (later immortalised in song by fellow AAA band Belle and Sebastian) decided not to make a full album with him. Peter was however rescued by television, becoming a regular on 'The Uncle Floyd Show' long before the programme was famous and becoming a routine 'funnyman' (Davy was also later a guest on the show). This led to the release of a long-awaited single in 1981, a re-recording of Monkees B-side 'Steppin' Stone' with his band of friends credited as 'The New Monk' (a title though up 'without ease/Es'? Yeah? Geddit? Alright then, please yourself...) Peter also became a regular on television, including a memorable David Letterman appearance where a date with Peter is auctioned off to the audience - and won by a Monkee-adoring granny!

Peter was an eager participant in the early Monkee reunions, singing backing vocals on 1986 comeback 'That Was Then, This Is Now', contributing one new song and one old one to 1987 album 'Pool It!' and two new songs to 1996 reunion 'JustUs'. In between tours Peter also formed his own band who play mainly cover songs from the 1950s, the memorably named 'Shoe Suede Blues'. Another band, 'The Dashboard Saints', became the house band of a pizza place in Guerneville, California (perhaps after Peter, Davy and Micky agreed to appear with Ringo in an advert for 'Pizza Hut' in 1986 celebrating their long awaited 'reunion', with a bit of a lineup mix up along the way). Finally in 1994 Peter released his one and only solo album (to date) titled 'Stranger Things Have Happened', over a quarter century after leaving The Monkees - in truth fewer stranger things have happened in Monkeedom than Peter finally being ‘allowed’ to make a whole CD. This record is also the only solo Monkee solo record to date to feature the other Monkees, with both Micky and Mike guesting on some songs. Peter also teamed up with guitarist James Lee Stanley for a popular two-man show. The 1990s was a particular source of happiness for Peter. He got married for a third time, to Tammy Sustek in 1998 and had a third child, Erica Marie, around the same period and after two Monkee reunion tours finally had some spare money in the bank. He was also 'promoted' to 'musical director' of the Monkees' touring band in 2002, a role he'd long called for and which saw him add several rare songs to the setlists once again. Peter even took up his acting work again, with a semi-regular role as the father of one of the 'Boy Meet's World's character's friends and a cameo as himself bidding at an auction for The Monkeemobile in piloting comedy 'Wings' (which is so awful it deserved to crash). Peter also became a writer, of sorts, hired as the official 'agony aunt' (agony aunt Grizelda?) of the webzine 'Daily Panic'. Alas all these welcome returns were put on hold when Peter was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, adenoid cystic carcinoma (the saliva glands), which kept fighting back until Peter was given the all clear after six months of surgery. Peter was open about his progress throughout and helped create a charity for the rare illness that raised lots of money through concerned Monkeefans. Peter was, thankfully, well enough to reunite with Micky and Davy for a tour that lasted from 2011 until Davy's sad death in February 2012. Peter has also continued to tour alongside Micky and Mike in the Monkees' 2012-2014 return but decided not to tour with the others in 2016-2017. His last recording turned out to be a strangely traditional Christmas Carol 'Angels We Have Heard On High', accompanied by his beloved banjo.

We worried at the time that the missed tour could have been through ill health, but predictably Peter kept such fears to himself - equally there has long been insider knowledge in The Monkees camp of a stalker situation that made Peter's public life difficult. Peter's family have not yet revealed what he died of - though many in the media have naturally seized on that cancer diagnosis of a decade ago. Peter had, alas, only just celebrated his 77th birthday just over a week ago - taken from us far too sign.  He remained, though a kind loving and giving figure until the very end, with so many tales today of the nuggets of philosophy and wisdom he used to pass on to fans. The musician's musician in The Monkees, talented writer and multi-instrumentalist and naturally funny chap Peter proved to be a highly canny choice by the Monkee creators from their audition process and the band might have been better yet had Peter been allowed to have a greater input into the albums (although there might well have been a few Bach harpsichord pieces and banjo medleys along the way!) We will forever miss that warm cheeky grin, those mischievous eyes and that big heart we love so much. Alas the clock in the sky is pounding away and there is still so much to say, but we can't keep the porpoise waiting. Goodbye, dear Peter, goodbye.

Our AAA pick of the five best Peter Tork moments:

5) Lady's Baby ('Missing Links' 1987): Peter was as real as they come. While his Monkee colleagues were taking the time as 'producers' of their own material to act out their fantasies (micky doing rock, Mike doing country and Davy being a songwriter) Peter was telling the world that he was in love and - shockingly for 1968 teenybopper standards - his girlfriend already had a child. 'Lady's Baby' took longer to make than any other Monkee record, with over a hundred takes putting guests Buddy Miles and old pal Stephen Stills through their paces while Peter at last got to sing his sweet lyric about feeling contented at last. 'Running never was much fun' he sighs, 'all it did was bring me down' - it isn't The Monkees fame or stardom he was after, but this feeling of love and security. That's the real 'baby' Justin on the track, the engineers at Colgems scurrying across the floor on their hands and knees to try and catch his baby talk into the microphone.

4) 'Long Title: Do I have To Do This All Over Again?' ('Head', 1968): By the end of 1968 Peter's contract was up and he was already on his way out the door. Though it was intended as his farewell message, the screaming rocker 'Long Title' feels like it: Peter is tired of having to repeat himself, revealing the monotony of the record business as he figures that there is more to life than a reco5rd deal. Stephen Stills again guests with the two old friends jamming on some intense guitar-bass interplay alongside Dewey Martin on drums, Stills' bandmate in Buffalo Springfield. One of the angriest yet catchiest riffs in rock and roll is perfectly cast for this glorious burst of tightly controlled noise and mayhem. Though Monkee creators Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider were often guilty of overlooking Peter's work even they saw how perfect this cynical put-down of the music business was for Monkee motion picture Head, which did much the same but to the record business.

3) 'Can You Dig It?' (Head, 1968): While Micky sang the lead on this song for the film and record, fans have long treasured bootlegs and since the 1990s an official recording of Peter's vocal on his own song. A philosophical tale, this track started life in high school as a riff without a name before finally coming together in 1968 with a Buddhist parable about acceptance. 'Those who know it use it, those who scorn it die, but to say that you can dig it is to make your soul to fly' is Peter's take on Buddhism and living in the moment. Once more the song ends with a tremendous band jam that takes the usual Monkee sidemen and pushes them like never before, with a stunning guitar attack that just keeps going and going, a cycle of neverending change.

2) For Pete's Sake ('Headquarters' 1967): Peter's first Monkee song is one he wrote almost without trying, throwing around words with his flatmate Joey Richards about his take on the hippie culture until realising he had a lyric he could set to music. The resulting song, about how 'we were born to love another and what we've got to be is free' is Peter's life outlook in a nutshell, a Monkee-like take on The Who's 'My Generation' that's less cynical more peaceful. Unsure of what to call it, Peter ended up using his name in the title, longing for peace for his sake - ands for his friends. The Monkees producers, realising that the band's theme tune was getting stale, got Micky to sing it for the closing credits of the band's second TV season where it is perfect for the more militant political band The Monkees were fast becoming.

1) Shades Of Grey ('Headquarters' 1967): Peter often had the image of a poor vocalist; what was probably nearer the truth is that he had a particular range in a band who vocally could do almost anything (and that's just Micky!) This song may not be his but it is right up his alley, warm and emotional with the folky flavour he favoured so much. Unsure about using his voice on record, but aware The Monkees had the right to do what they liked on record, Davy got to sing the first verse of this beautiful song and its his best singing too until Peter takes over for the second half. Peter re-arranged this song almost completely from the cute but silly 'Will O'Bees' original into something much darker, dropping the key to make Davy sing low, adding a haunting piano refrain Peter also plays on the record and even transcribing the French Horn part for the musician to play, a trick Peter learnt in music college. It is one of the most powerful and gorgeous moments in The Monkee canon. Like so many other great moments, we have Peter to thank for it. As under-rated as he was, as passed over as he frequently might be, as ignored as he could be, Peter was The Monkees' dark horse and the show wouldn't have been as funny while the music wouldn't maybe have been quite as deep without him. How we miss him already!


A NOW COMPLETE LIST OF MONKEE ARTICLES TO READ AT ALAN’S ALBUM ARCHIVES:


'More Of The Monkees' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/more-of-monkees-1967.html









‘JustUs# (1996) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-monkees-justus-1996.html


'Only Shades Of Grey' : The Monkees In Relation To Postmodernism (University Dissertation) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/university-dissertation-monkees-in.html

Auditions, Screen Tests and Pre-Fame Recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-monkees-auditions-and-screen-tests.html

Surviving TV Clips http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/the-monkees-surviving-tv-clips.html

The TV Series - Season  One (19966-1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/the-monkees-tv-series-season-one-196667.html

The TV Series - Season Two (1967-1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-monkees-tv-series-season-two-1967.html

'HEAD/33 and a third Revolutions Per Monkee/Episode #761' http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-monkees-head33-and-third.html

Monkee Sidetrips: The Boyce and Hart Catalogue http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/05/monkees-side-trips-boyce-and-hart.html

Live/Solo/Compilation Albums Part One 1967-1975
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-monkees-livesolocompilation-albums.html

Live/Solo/Compilation Albums Part Two 1976-1986
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-monkees-livesolocompilation-albums.html


Key Concerts and Cover Versions: https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-monkees-five-landmark-concerts-and.html


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Monday, 15 February 2016

Tribute Special: Paul Kantner and Signe Anderson (Jefferson Airplane)








You can buy 'Wild Thyme - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of Jefferson Airplane/Starship' by clicking here!






Paul Kantner (March 17th 1941-January 28th 2016) and Signe Toly Anderson (September 15th 1941-January 28th 2016)


"If you can fasten on that moment and expand through the afterglow you can reverse your mind in time and travel back to when the earth was formed, the sky was born and the universe began"

"One for Paul, one for Signe, one for to make my heart rejoice, can't your hear your lambs a calling? Oh Good Shepherd feed my sheep"

I know, I know, I'm very late with this article. As in 'White Rabbit' late funnily enough given that this is, sadly, a Jefferson Airplane tribute special. Everyone else has made their tributes already and moved on in this difficult period when we seem to be losing musical heroes by the day. But as regular readers who've been waiting patiently for me to resume my reviews again know I couldn't write the article I wanted to write on January 28th when we lost not one but two founding members of one of the greatest bands on the planet (or outside it). Both Paul Kantner and Signe Anderson, key players in the AAA, deserve their tribute though however late it is. And if anyone taught to me to look outside the constructing linear structures of Earthly mortal time it was Paul, who may have represented the 1960s spirit better than almost anyone else on the one hand but on the other definitely lived outside of it, already more than a half a footstep into the great bright world of tomorrow when hippie ideals came true and humanity had finally found the right path.

That's why his death has been so hard for us Airplaners to take. Surely someone so larger than life, so utterly determined to live his life to his own value system and  who spent so many years and so many songs dreaming about the future has to be there to see it. Given the amount of health scares Paul had shrugged aside down the years that should have killed him several times over: a motorbike accident that left him with a shattered skull in the mid 1960s, a cerebral haemorrhage in 1980 - even after suffering a first heart attack in March 2015 Kantner rallied enough to be playing shows with his re-booted Jefferson Starship up until a few weeks before his death. If anyone seemed to be immortal it was surely Paul, our hippie spirit guide who kept us safe whilst being built like a tank, refusing to slow down or stop to the very end and whose ability to take no nonsense from anyone singled him out in the hippie community.

This makes more sense when you learn about Paul's childhood, which funnily enough I spent some time researching last Summer in an effort to get the biographies section of my Jefferson Airplane book into gear. Now, often writing these biographies you get little sense of what will come later - it's amazing how many of the AAA bands lived full and happy childhood lives given the existential angst in much of the music to come. But Paul's childhood was the sort of Dickensian tale that usually creates mad dictators rather than writers intent on spreading peace and love. His father was of German descent and his mother French (with some ancestors who were also German) which made Paul rather the odd one out amongst his peers. In addition, Paul's father (also named Paul) had already been married previously, unusual in 1940s America. His mother Cora died when he was only eight. Unsure what to do with him his father first packed him off to the circus so he wouldn't be a 'problem' during her funeral (leaving the boy with no real chance to say goodbye) and then packed him off to a strict Catholic Military Boarding School. Paul hated almost everything about it - the rigid discipline, the restrictive teachings, the religious dogma shoved down the throats of him and his peers. Paul responded by giving what little spare time he had over to his own personal rebellion against the school's non-nonsense structure by learning to play the guitar (folk protest songs a speciality - Pete Seeger was his favourite) and spending hours in the school library entranced by science fiction writers. Though the teachers no doubt Paul he was wasting time that could be better spent learning or praying, both loves were to play a big part in Paul making his name and career.

Finding that career on leaving school, though, was difficult. Kantner reluctantly became a college student, switching between three institutions before dropping out altogether in his third year determined to make music his life. Paul had been waiting for so long to become a full time musician that, together with his natural optimistic lookout that things would work out, he probably hadn't given a thought to just how hard it was to make a living as a solo folk guitarist playing coffee houses. Paul did, at least, discover a whole new community of like-minded friends for pretty much the first time and created several friendships with members of different bands (CSNY, Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service) that would last a lifetime. After four years of not much happening Paul was playing a solo gig at a San Francisco club known as The Drinking Gourd when another singer-guitarist named Marty Balin stopped him at the end of his set and asked for a chat. Marty owned his own club and wanted to form a folk-rock band to play as the 'house band' and though the coffee houses and clubs were over-run with wannabes in 1965 Marty sensed that he'd found a musical and political soulmate, up for adventure and experimentation. As it turned out, it was a canny move: though the Airplane and later the Jefferson Starship would both grow into sextets Paul is the only member of the group to have played on every record by both incarnations, staying the course until 1984 (when the band became simply 'Starship').

That's twenty years of classic anthems, legendary gigs, top ten hits, forgotten gems and enough political waves to make establishment figures very very nervous of anything with the Jefferson name attached to it. The dynamic of the band was unique: Marty wrote the love songs, Signe (at first) stayed pure folk, Grace (later) developed her own intensely emotional style, Jorma and Jack provided the noisiest-yet-always-musical guitar-bass section in rock and first Skip Spence, then Spencer Dryden, provided the offbeat humour and drums. That's enough for six or seven bands - it was learning how to contain all these different parts together that made the Airplane so different to other bands, so ridiculously exciting with a set of original songs that ranged from drugs ('White Rabbit') to James Joyce pastiche ('ReJoyce') and from politically earth-shaking anthems ('We Can Be Together', the first song ever released with the 'f' word - as far back as 1970) to some of the most gorgeous love songs of the period ('Comin' Back To Me' and 'Today').

At first Paul was at the back: the rhythm guitarist in the unfashionable bottle glasses with the deep bass voice who was no one's idea of a pop star in the 1960s. That didn't stop Paul though: as the albums went on he grew in confidence to the point where he became as close to a leader as the democratic Airplane would ever allow and his unique, uncopyable songs provided the greatest fuel to their rocket fire. As early as the first album 'Jefferson Airplane Takes Off!' Paul is writing songs that no one else would have thought of: 'Let Me In' is an agonised rant so awkward and desperate in stark contrast to Marty's casual ease. 'DCBA-25' from the band's biggest selling album follow-up 'Surrealistic Pillow' in 1967 explored Paul's love of folk music with a new guitar tuning he'd learnt (and proudly showed off in the title). It's on album number three though, our AAA pick as the greatest album Jefferson Airplane ever made (even if hardly anyone seems to know it - shocking!) that really shows what Paul can do. With Marty drifting away from the group, Kantner fills the gap by having a hand in six of the album's eleven dazzling songs, all of which breaks new ground. The most famous of these is 'The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil' which is perhaps the most Kantner song of them all, namechecking two of his favourite and very different heroes (folk singer Freddy Neil of 'Everybody's Talkin' fame and AA Milne's Winnie The Pooh'). Surrealist imagination and brutal tell-it-like-it-is politics mesh in a song where everything is turned on its head ('Doesn't the sky look green today?!'), that opens with the most ear-piercing shriek of feedback ever recorded and in which band members get to shout 'armadillo!' at random intervals and yet it somehow all makes sense. Though something as a flop when released as the follow-up to big hits 'Somebody To Love' and 'White Rabbit', psychedelic enthusiasts recognise is today as one of the greatest concoctions of 1967. Less well known but just as strong are 'Martha' (a runaway who leaves a surburban home to find happiness in a hippie cult - if she'd read a few more sci-fi books along the way Martha could have been Paul himself), 'Wild Thyme' the ultimate hippie anthem ('I'm doing things that haven't got a name yet!') and 'Won't You Try?-Saturday Afternoon', a tribute to the hippie movement so moving and colourful surely even Richard Nixon would have run away to join in if only someone had slipped the song to him.

Talking of Nixon, Paul began to realise about 1968 that the Airplane had an important part to play in the role of attacking Conservative America and inflicted the sort of restrictions he'd spent his childhood fighting. From this point on Jefferson Airplane become one of the bravest, most radicalised of bands - 'The House At Pooneil Corners' imagines a future where the nuclear button has been pressed and 'the idiots have won!'; 'Volunteers' screams 'Gotta Revolution!' as hippies get their own rallying call to match the Government's Vietnam drafts; 'We can Be Together' promises to get the corrupt powers that be 'up against the wall'; 'The Son Of Jesus' takes a belated dig at the Catholicism shoved down his throat as a boy; Grace's 'Mexico' damns Nixon for making money out of the drug trade in Latin America while outwardly damning it. The Government of the day became genuinely afraid of the Airplane; sadly a Grace Slick-led plan to douse Nixon with acid (as a posh public school kid herself she was sent an invite under her maiden name Grace Wing and decided to take them up on it - alas security recognised her at the door and wouldn't let her in) came to nothing. This gritty realism also made a neat match for Kantner's growing pile of science-fiction songs starting with 'Crown Of Creation' in 1968 (based on a line from classic John Wyndham novel 'The Chrysalids' that man had reached his peak 'and has got no place to go'), through to 'When The Earth Moves Again' (a utopian future) and 'Have You Seen The Saucers?' (which as a tale of Government conspiracy and alien visitation would have made a handy second theme for 'The X-Files').

This will reach its peak in 1971 when, in time off from recording with the Airplane, Paul brings a bunch of his friends from his own and other bands in to help him record the concept album 'Blows Against The Empire'. Set in a 1990s that sadly never came to pass, this is the tale of a bunch of hippies who steal a starship that the Government intends to use to colonise other planets in the name of capitalism and instead spreads 'free dope, free love, free music' around the universe instead. The collaborative record is a true masterpiece and was even nominated for a HUGO science fiction award in 1971 in the 'best dramatic presentation' category (oddly there was no overall winner given that year. Given that as a sci-fi buff of the highest order Paul had read almost all the nominees every year since the awards began it must have been a huge thrill, as was getting a letter from author Robert Heinlein after asking permission to use certain themes from his books as part of the record ('Everybody pinches my work all the time - but you're the first person ever to ask!') For what it's worth 'Blows' is currently listed on my 'greatest ever albums' site list as the third greatest album ever made by anyone. Lyrical yet listenable, tight but loose, musical yet experimental (with two tracks dedicated to sound effects!), it's a triumph and arguably Paul's peak as a performer and writer, notwithstanding his major achievements with the Airplane and Starship.

Paul enjoyed a particularly close relationship with Grace who surely deserved a co-credit for her hard work on that record and the pair even had a child together (China) in 1971 (the story that her parents genuinely meant to all her 'god' 'with a small 'g' to keep her humble' has been doing the rounds again in all the obituaries but isn't technically true: Grace was deliberately provoking a Conservative newspaper reporter who called round for an interview). The pair quickly became one of the most celebrated couples of their day (a hippie Posh and Becks if you will, or perhaps an even hippier John and Yoko might be closer) but the relationship took a long time to arrive. During her time in the Airplane Grace went out/slept with three other members of the band first (she never did hook up with Marty to give you a clue). The Kanter-Slick pairing was by far the most solid though and the pair made another record together, 'Sunfighter', in 1971 which is another classic album based around the rough theme of their child's birth and on Paul's songs, his worry about what sort of a world she'll be growing up in. A third album, co-credited to Quicksilver's David Freiberg, was released in 1972 in tribute to the pair's David Crosby-coined nicknames, 'Baron Von Tollbooth and The Chrome Nun' (Paul 'is very...German' as Grace puts it in the sleevenotes). The pair remained a couple until the mid-1970s when Grace moved on to the Airplane's lighting man Skip Johnson; it's a tribute to the band's free love principles that Paul, Grace and Skip worked side by side through to the 1980s despite this. Their relationship can be best summed up by a question Paul was asked in 2007 over how much of the Jefferson name Paul was allowed to use in his touring band: 'She's suing me at the moment from some unknown reason, but generally we get along very well!' Paul later met Cynthia Bowman in 1978 who became his girlfriend for much of the next decade, but never formally married.

Jefferson Airplane had naturally fallen apart by 1972: too many solo albums and line-up changes (Marty was off on his own too by now, the band were on their third drummer and Jorma and Jack were having more fun with their new blues band Hot Tuna, originally conceived of as the Airplane's warm-up act), while the mood in hippiedom had grown notably darker since the days of Monterey and Woodstock, with the Jeffersons themselves playing Altamont (where their set gets delayed when poor Marty gets beaten up for trying to rescue a member of the crowd from a hell's angel biker; Paul's angry rants from the stage being equally brave in context). Paul had already formed a sort-of sequel band 'Jefferson Starship' for Blows, which included a hot-shot then-fifteen year old guitarist named Craig Chaquico and David Frieberg amongst the cast and 'crew'. He and Grace decided to make the band a more full-time affair in 1974 with both their friends on board alongside late-period Airplane drummer Johnny Barbata (fresh from his work with CSNY), late-period Airplane violin player Papa John Creach (then in his fifties) and session bassist/keyboard player Pete Sears. A few sessions in Marty also arrived as a 'guest' - and stayed as a permanent fixture for the next three albums. Though less daring and bold than the Airplane, Jefferson Starship had lost none of their musical prowess or love of large concepts and their music also sold, at least at first, in greater numbers than the Airplane's (a fact that often gets overlooked these days).

At first Paul was the lynchpin of the band, dominating the writing and vocal credits for first (and arguably best) album 'Dragonfly' and though his influence waned as the band got more mainstream and actually started having hits again (Marty's sweet ballad 'Miracles' from 1975), Paul's work remains some of the band's best. He kicks the Starship years off in spectacular form with the driving rocker 'Ride The Tiger', an aggressive song about spirituality and a pure Kantner song if ever there was one; wrote the music for the exceptional seven minute ballad 'Caroline'; damned the entire state of the world in 1975 on 'I Want To See Another World'; came up with the idea for the gorgeously dreamy prog rock ballad 'St Charles' and went even more epic on the two-part suite 'Song Of The Sun'. By 1978 though the Starship had crash-landed with a weak fourth album 'Earth', a bizarre cameo in the much-lampooned Star Wars TV Holiday Special of 1978 (I'm  still waiting for the band to appear in one of the actual films - they'd improve them no end! Princess Leia needs a bit of Grace Slicking up!) and lost members like anything: Marty to boredom, Johnny to a car crash that left an arm injured and Grace to an increasingly out of control drinking problem. Paul considered that the band had grown 'soft' and decided to re-model them as a more current, new wave band. Hiring new singer Mickey Thomas, the Starship re-launched with 'Freedom At Point Zero' in 1979, a brave album of crackling energy and primal instincts that Paul dominated like no album since 'Baxters' twelve years before. Though it doesn't 'sound' much like a Kantner LP, Paul's mixture of gritty realism and spiritual awakening is very much in evidence in the lyrics which feature several of his favourite themes mixing Armageddon and hope in equal measure. The record also introduces one of his favourite characters, Rose, who becomes the saviour of the human race in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust and represents everything Kantner longs to see happen in the future. Jefferson Starship end up making three more records with this line-up - two and a bit of them with Grace back in the band - ending with the under-rated cold war parable 'Nuclear Furniture' in 1984. Paul also got round to writing a sequel to 'Blows Against The Empire' in 1983, although the sad and bitter 'The Empire Blows Back' is often a hard album to listen to, with many of the original cast dead , dying or imprisoned (David Crosby was inside on a drugs charge; Jerry Garcia was still recovering from a diabetic coma that oh so nearly killed him) and the hippies only win at the very end this time.

By this time, though, Kantner is feeling ostracised from a band that once centred around him and feeling ever more adrift from the current music scene as new wave turns to bland 80s synth pop. Paul left in the middle of an American tour after a Starship equivalent of nuclear fallout and as the only 'founding' member left in the band (Grace had joined a year in) also took with him the rights to the band's name (or at least the 'Jefferson' bit). By 1985 what was left of the group has re-styled themselves as purely 'Starship', a far poppier mainstream band. Paul responded by forming another Jefferson-orientated band and album, the under-rated 'KBC Band' (Kantner Balin Casady), although this record sold even fewer copies than the late-period Jefferson records had. This and Grace getting bored with 'Starship' led to a full way original of as near as many of the 'famous' Airplaners as possible in 1988 (though sadly Spencer Dryden couldn't make it), for what turned out to be the last 'mainstream' album Paul was ever involved with. The band were still at loggerheards in the court-rooms at the time (the antithesis of the 'freedom' with which they'd started a quarter century earlier) but Grace turned up unannounced at a Kantner gig and started singing 'White Rabbit' - a grinning Kantner had put his differences aside and kicked the band into the song instead. The record, alas, was a disappointment, largely made up of songs recycled from solo albums, and the Airplane split for good in 1989. Paul continued touring with his own incarnation of Jefferson Starship though, sometimes alongside Marty when dates allowed for it, releasing several live albums, an album of originals on a low budget label (1999's 'Windows Of Heaven') and a reunion, of sorts, with lots of old Jeffersoners regrouping for 2008's 'Jefferson's Tree Of Liberty' (though sadly not at the same time). Paul's last release turned out to be near-impossible to find: 2010's two part 'Windowpane Collection' whose names 'A Martian Christmas' and 'Venusian Love Songs' point to the fact that the sci-fi element in his songs was still going strong.

Paul had suffered a heart attack in March 2015 which looked very bad - bad enough for the Jefferson community to hold its breath and wait in worried silence. But, as he so often did Paul recovered to the point where Jefferson Starship were back touring again months later. It really did look as if Paul was immortal, here to stay forever. Sadly, though, even Paul couldn't survive a second heart attack a few days after new year's day 2016 and  the guitarist never recovered, officially dying from multiple organ failure and septic shock at the age of 74. He leaves behind him an incredible legacy; some of the greatest - and most epic - recordings in rock and roll, a more spiritually and politically aware generation and a whole host of heartbroken fans who want him back home safely on planet Earth. Kantner, however, is finally in the stars where he always wanted to be, free from the shackles of society at last and enjoying the fruits of where he believed humanity belonged some day, into infinity and beyond. I still believe that one day 'Blows Against The Empire' must come true and that mankind is due a happier, freer time enjoying getting lost in space and time; I put it to you now that when the time comes and our first starship rises into space we have to call it the 'SS Kantner' or maybe the 'Jefferson Kantner'. We owe nothing less to the musician who more than any other made us aware of the possibilities of our future and made so much effort making them real in the present. Kantner was a hero to the rest of us who were earth-bound for fifty glorious years - not a superman of course and often far from perfect, but a hero nonetheless. For he gave us hope and awareness and music, reinventing all of these over and over for us across his career. Who could ask for more than that? Pioneer, searcher, refugee. We followed you - and you followed we.

As usual in these cases, the music community has come together in grief with several moving quotes. Here's fellow guitarist Jorma Kaukanen: 'Paul and I were old friends...Our commonality was always the music and whatever it took to make it happen. In my opinion Paul was the catalyst that made the alchemy happen. He held our feet to the flame. He could be argumentative and contentious… he could be loving and kind… his dedication to the Airplane’s destiny as he saw it was undeniable... Friends are always good… you can’t have too many of them. That said, the old ones share that wondrous gift of knowing you when you were young. You can’t buy that. I will miss your presence on this plane…Ride free to the end of the earth my old friend… I will not forget you!' Here's Jefferson singer Marty Balin: 'He was like an American David Bowie," says Balin. "He had these mad, epic ideas'. Here's his friend and occasional collaborator David Crosby: 'Paul was a lot like me — opinionated, confident and not very afraid of anything. But Paul wasn't trying to convince you that you had to do it his way. He did think that leading by example was the right thing. He was a believer in music as a lifting force. It lifts humanity up, makes it better... He had a very forthright approach. He didn't do tender ballads. He liked songs where he could sing out strong, in full voice. He was always the toughest of us. You thought nothing could kill him'. Grace's tribute simply read: 'Rest in peace my friend, love Grace'.

Spookily - and in a sort of spiritual mystical coincidence the pair would have loved - fellow founding member Signe Toly Anderson died the exact same day as Paul (though her family, sensibly, kept the news private an extra 24 hours in order to let the news about Kantner filter through). Though less prolific (she only ever recorded that first album with Jefferson Airplane before retiring from music more or less for good) and far less covered by the media, her death is no less tragic. Not many fans even remember that the Airplane had a female lead singer before Grace Slick but they did - and how! Signe arguably had more of a career going than any of the other band members when she took up Marty's invitation to join the fledging group, having built up a name for herself as a solo singer specialising in jazz and folk. Having mixed gender bands was deeply unusual back in 1965 but Signe was a natural fit for the band: despite her folkier roots she could holler rock and roll with the best of them and her voice was a natural blend with Marty's and Paul's. She had to move from Portland, Oregon to San Francisco to join the band and took her family with her - her husband was Jerry Anderson, a member of the 'Merry Pranksters', part of author Ken Kesey's local hippie 'commune'. Though Marty was still clearly the 'leader' in those early days, much of the publicity surrounding the early Airplane days centred around Signe: a hippie chick in pigtails who looked like a sweet and innocent schoolgirl but sounded more like Janis Joplin. Signe was a key part of developing and recording many early Airplane classics, including live favourite 'High Flying Bird' (which Grace later took over), debut single 'Runnin' Round This World' (immediately banned for its drug and sex-referencing line 'the nights I've spent with you have been fantastic trips!') and Signe's much-requested fan favourite signature tune 'Chauffeur's Blues'. A rocking remake of a blues song thought to be first recorded by 'Memphis Minnie' in 1941, it's a sign of just how many styles Signe was able to juggle with elements of folk, blues, jazz and rock adding up to an impressive whole.

Alas that was pretty much all Airplane fans were able to hear of the band's founding co-lead singer. Signe officially left the band because she fell pregnant and she was worried about bringing up a baby in the mayhem that was already part of the Airplane's touring party. However she has also since spoken about her many disagreements with the Airplane's management, disliking their manager Matthew Katz and even fat the start insisted on a clause being added to her contract whereby she would be 'free' of him when and if she chose to quit the band. Officially Signe quit the Airplane as early as July 1966, merely a month after their first gigs together, but stayed until October as a 'favour' to the band. She even had a hand in nominating her replacement, suggesting Grace whose first band The Big Society had already crashed and burned over an even shorter lifespan than the first Airplane line-up. Most fans didn't know - Signe's departure was simply mentioned at the end of her last gig at the Filmore on October 15th, after which the fans caused such an outcry Signe was urged to come back on stage and sing 'Chauffeur's Blues' one last time. The Airplane simply turned up with Grace the next day, no explanation given (both shows are now out as lovingly re-created live 'bootlegs' on the Sony label; most fans agree Signe's is the best). Signe's final words of farewell to her fans as heard at the gig now make for a rather sweet epitaph: I want you all to wear smiles and daisies and box balloons. I love you all. Thank you and goodbye'.

After leaving the Airplane both Signe and Jerry moved back to Portland for a much quieter life at home where Signe largely brought up her children in privacy, though she stayed in regular contact with Marty and Paul across the years the Airplane were at their peak. She claimed to never miss the attention but she did miss the music so hooked up with a local band, 'Carl Smith and the Natural Gas Company' with whom she performed with on and off until 1974. By then her life was in turmoil: she'd split up with Jerry and was suffering from cancer while still in her early 30s. Life got easier by the end of the decade as Signe beat the illness and married again, to Michael Ettlin, who predeceased her in 2011.  Signe continued to sing with Carl Smith's band but never made another recording; the closest she got was a surprise return to the media to talk about her role in the band, first for the 'Jefferson Airplane Loves You' box set released in 1992 and later for the first release of her 'farewell' show in 2010. She also made one-off guest appearances with Paul's Jefferson Starship and the KBC Band. Unfortunately health problems continued to make life difficult in later life, with fans rallying to her cause more than once to help raise funds for life-saving operations. In the end Signe lived to be 74 when she finally succumbed to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease at her home in Oregon.
Though lesser known to the music world in general, the warmth and love shown for Signe over recent weeks proves how central she, too, was to the Jefferson story and how fond fans were of her 'footnote' role within the band. Her passing, too, was greeted with several comments by her former bandmates: Jack Casady called her 'A real sweetheart with a terrific contralto voice'. Jorma said on his blog: 'Signe was one of the strongest people I have ever met. She was our den mother in the early days of the Airplane… a voice of reason on more occasions than one… an important member of our dysfunctional little family. I always looked forward to seeing her when we played the Aladdin in Portland. She never complained and was always a joy'. And finally, Marty summed up the double tragedy with a story that both Paul and Signe would have loved, imagining them 'Both waking up in heaven, looking round in surprise and saying 'Hey! What are you doing here? I know - let's start a band!'

At first, they were iridescent. Then they became transparent. Finally, they were absent. And a whole generation mourns them.

Ten Classic Paul Kantner Songs...

The Ballad Of You and Me and Pooneil ('After Bathing At Baxters' 1967)

There has never been a song quite like 'Pooneil'. Having - temporarily - called a truce with record company RCA with the more commercial 'Surrealistic Pillow' album, Paul gleefully led the band straight back into the wild blue yonder, with the opening track and lead single of the band's third album one of the most uncompromising follow-ups to a top ten hit in history. Jorma's squealing feedback makes it clear we're going somewhere 'else' on one of the band's trippiest songs, before Paul merges his two unlikely heroes of Fred Neil and AA Milne into a land filled of imagination and new understanding where each revelation is punctuated by full-on three part-harmonies, drum battles and the single fattest bass line of the 1960s. Much of the lyrics hark back to the escape Paul felt in music, drugs and imagination as he joyfully escapes into his inner mind, a world where the sky is green and the land is full of armadillos, before crashing back to earth with the worry of loneliness and death if the narrator spends too long in this land, accompanied by the same opening crushing feedback. In concert this snakey, slinky song became a twelve minute epic (just the way Paul liked 'em) but the compact four minute original is still best.

Won't You Try?/Saturday Afternoon ('After Bathing At Baxters' 1967)

A glorious advert for the hippie way of life, this is Paul declaring 'Saturday' as his national hippie celebration day when the working week is done and humanity can get back to living life the way they were always meant to.  Another urgent cry to fans to leave the 'normal' world behind this is a world where Paul promises 'caps of blue and silver sunlight for your hair', acid incense and balloons', 'people dancing everywhere largely shouting 'I don't care' and a world where 'everywhere there's sunshine instead of snow'. In short, it's a time for growing and for knowing love - and few songs capture the spirit of 1967 better. Together with a terrific Jorma-Jack guitar-bass interaction the song wanders awkwardly up to the middle section when suddenly, in true and tested Airplane fashion, the song is no longer walking but soaring. As the heavy bottom drops out of the song the guitars are circling and the three-part harmonies are gliding and...well this is why hippie music is simply the best. How can you not try after music as glorious as this? (The featured version is from the director's cut of the 'Woodstock' film and is one of the best performances of the song).

Crown Of Creation ('Crown Of Creation' 1968)

One of Paul's most intellectual songs, 'Crown' is about nothing less than the possible future evolution of mankind and whether anything can ever come along to knock him off his perch at the top of nature's tree. Paul, as usual, is deeply suspicious of the society view that mankind is the tops and turns in another song where everything is slightly 'wrong'. The track is bass heavy, Jack's yawning bass rolls dominating everything as mankind finally 'attain the stability you strive for' the only way nature knows how - as a fossil long buried in the earth as other species take over. Inspired by what might well be John Wyndham's novel grittiest novel 'The Chrysalids', Paul as ever goes further and complains: 'Life is change...I've seen their ways too often for my liking'. The closing ring of 'ahs' from Paul, Grace and Marty is gloriously final and chilling.

A Child Is Coming ('Blows Against The Empire' 1971)

And 'China' is her name. Our pick from 'Blows Against The Empire' (though, really, you could pick any of it) turns on a sixpence from joyous celebration to wide-awake-in-the-middle-of-the-night worry as Paul worries about the world his daughter might grow up in. With the help of Grace and David Crosby (who have a most magical blend of harmonies, even by Airplane/CSN standards), Paul refuses to hand over her details to 'Uncle Sam', 'looking for the print of their hand for the files in their number game'. 'I don't want his chances for freedom to ever be that slim' sings Paul, guessing the gender of his baby wrong, 'So let's not tell them about him!' Suddenly the track has switched gears, joined by a passionate Jack Casady bass squeal that peals up to the heavens and expands across the rest of the song as if turning from monochrome to technicolour ('Blows' is amongst the best engineered AAA albums alongside all its other strengths). Meanwhile, all three singers are off, trading and improvising lines both celebrating and fearing for the newborn's future life. Kantner, as usual, is the optimist: 'It's getting brighter, finer...higher'.

When I Was A Boy I Watched The Wolves ('Sunfighter' 1972)

As, effectively, an only child (who didn't live with his two older half-siblings) who felt abandoned for most of his childhood in a school where friendships were frowned on, Paul always longed to feel part of a 'gang'. He found it at last with his band and his hippie crowd - but 'Wolves' isn't really a 'hippie' sort of song. It's more of a primal song, about the desperate need all humans have to 'belong', accompanied by some stunning piercing guitar bursts from a still teenage Craig Chaquico and some more lovely Grace 'n' Crosby harmonies. Kantner is no longer so alone he has to 'rely on the fire of my friends' and is now in the fortunate position where 'I can carry a few - and I do when I can'. He still feels the other-worldly, supernatural pull of needing to 'belong' though leading to a final guttural cry: 'Get back, be bright, run with the wolfpack!' as the 'gang' turns into hippies everywhere, taking the world over one town at a time.

Your Mind Has Left Your Body ('Baron Von Tollbooth and The Chrome Nun' 1973)

Paul was slightly over-stretched in 1972, struggling to fill out the last two Airplane studio albums and contribute equal shares to the 'Chrome Nun' album. The highlight of the year, effectively, has him blissed out and meditating his way to a new spiritual understanding. Paul's 'floatiest', most surreal song, as we drift from being buried underneath the polar ice cap to rising up to the sky and a rainbow 'to see 2000 city lights flash below you'. Paul's most openly drug-riddled song, it's a final lament to a hippie way of life that was fading and a last instruction manual from the musician who more than almost anyone tried to make the world turn on. The song ends though, as so many Kantner epics do, with the knowledge that there is more to learn, waiting patiently till next time you manage to journey so far out.
St Charles ('Spitfire' 1976)

Though the credits list Marty, Craig and band friend Jesse Barrish as collaborators, this is surely a 'Kantner' song - it just has that 'feel' about it. One of the Starship's proggier moments, this haunting ballad follows a dream overseen by an imaginary saint. China, by now a feisty five-year-old with both her parent's outspoken-ness, is a 'dragon princess', while her dad gets hypnotised by a 'demon' and falls in love. Suddenly the vision - and the tempo - changes and we're inside the world of the future that Paul has spent his life dreaming of; 'another world of people dancin' in rhyme, dancing in the air, six fingered, webbed'. Suddenly 'she' is the 'storm changer' as the narrator gets brusquely tumbled back into the real world, convinced of a 'storm coming'. Craig's typically jaw-dropping virtuoso solo brings the curtain closing on a truly magical piece of music, impenetrable by Paul's usual standards but fascinatingly so with Jefferson Starship working together as a band like never before.

Girl With The Hungry Eyes ('Freedom At Point Zero' 1979)

By 1979 Jefferson Starship were getting a little bloated and ballad/top 40 hit heavy. Paul embraced the changing world of punk and new wave by making the band relevant all over again with a series of gritty, crunching, guitar 'n' drum heavy pop songs without a drug or hippie reference in sight. This example is one of the best: the closest to a straightforward 'love' song Paul ever wrote. Few love songs have ever included the line 'every atom of my body will inhale her' or finds the time to remind us how short-lived any romance in 1978 might be: 'I am a child of atomic war!' Fun and catchy, but in a blunt and tough way, 'Hungry Eyes' features a classic rock riff and a great performance from a band who weren't supposed to be able to pull off this sort of thing.

Stairway To Cleveland ('Modern Times' 1981)

A list of complaints about the modern world and music critics and even the band themselves ('The new drummer's crazy! The manager's an asshole! I can't stand your guitar playing!') set to music shouldn't be this good - but somehow it is. 'Why don't you sound like you used to?' the critics sigh 'Like '65' '67' '69' 75?' while saying that the band will 'never make it,  never never never never never never never!' Saying 'can't' to Paul is a red rag to a bull though and he responds by drilling Jefferson Starship through a song that sounded more dangerous and daring than anything bands half the Jefferson's age were releasing in 1982 with a tour de force of a performance.  Responding with a big (and literal by the end) 'fuck you' to the band's detractors and the world in general, Kantner asks a series of rhetorical questions that never get answered as he rants away over a simple rock and roll chord. 'Chaos coming?' asks Kantner. 'Keep strumming!' is his answer, just as it always has been. You know I like it, though predictably most of the band's critics said this one was 'too noisy'.

(I Came Back) From The Jaws Of The Dragon ('Winds Of Change' 1983)

Finally, dragons feature a lot in Kantner's work: mythical and exotic yet capable of great strength combined with spirituality, they were his perfect emblem. This track from the penultimate Jefferson Starship album has the dragon as a metaphor for life though - or possibly death given how close Paul had come to dying three years before (strangely enough Paul's mid 60s motorbike crash, which left a hole in his skull, probably saved his life at this point when a haemorrhage built up in Paul's brain). Predictably this near-brush with death ended up a song about refusing to give up on the one hand and to not get so stressed on the other. In one great last Kantner rant against the establishment he tells us: 'That's how they want you feel - dissatisfaction! Massive demoralisation! You are supposed to believe that war is imminent, that crime soars, that chaos prevails. Then they give you a moment of sweet sweet peace where you become so happy they send you to jail!' I'm convinced, by the way, that this track was 'swapped' with Jefferson Starship performance 'She's A Telepath' from 'The Empire Blows Back' as this song fits the 'story' much better.

...And one classic Signe Anderson Performance

Chauffeur Blues ('Jefferson Airplane Takes Off!' 1966)

As for Signe, there can only be one choice. 'Cheuffeur' may have been an old blues song but Signe makes it her own, delivering a groundbreaking performance that was outrageous for a girl to be singing in 1965. She likes her chauffeur but worries about him hanging around with girls and wants him to herself so she holds him up at gun point and asks to be driven round the world instead. Though the song could be done in many ways Signe gives it bounce and a childish glee as she relishes the thought of being in control of a relationship she's always wanted to happen. Though Grace always refused to sing the song, saying it was 'special' to Signe and her fans, the creation of Slick's tough uncompromising outspoken character starts here before she's even in the band. Signe's combination of blues, folk. jazz and rock would have been hard to beat though in any case, a sadly single example of just what Signe brought to the band as a lead vocalist.


That's all for now. We'll be back to our usual run of album reviews next Monday, alongside our further adventures with Lindisfarne. See you then!

Other Jefferson-flavoured articles from this website you might be interested in:

A NOW COMPLETE LIST OF JEFFERSON ARTICLES TO READ AT ALAN’S ALBUM ARCHIVES:

 'Takes Off!' (1966) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/news-views-and-music-issue-116.html

'Surrealistic Pillow' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/03/jefferson-airplane-surrealistic-pillow.html

'After Bathing At Baxters' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-15-jefferson-airplane-after.html

'Crown Of Creation' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/jefferson-airplane-crown-of-creation.html

'Volunteers' (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/jefferson-airplane-volunteers-1969.html

'Bark' (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/news-views-and-music-issue-91-jefferson.html

'Blows Against The Empire' (Kantner)  (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-44-paul-kantner-and-jefferson.html

‘Sunfighter’ (Kantner/Slick) (1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/paul-knatnewrgrace-slick-jefferson.html?utm_source=BP_recent

'Long John Silver' (1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/02/jefferson-airplane-long-john-silver-1972.html

'Baron Von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun' (Kantner/Slick/Freiberg) (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/paul-kantner-grace-slick-and-david.html

'Dragonfly' (1974) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/news-views-and-music-issue-51-jefferson.html

'Red Octopus' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/jefferson-starship-red-octopus-1975.html

'Spitfire' (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/jefferson-starship-spitfire-1976-album.html

‘Earth’ (1978) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/jefferson-starship-earth-1978.html

'Modern Times' (1981) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/jefferson-starship-modern-times-1981.html

'Winds Of Change' (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/07/jefferson-starship-winds-of-change-1982.html

'The Empire Blows Back'# aka 'The Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra (Paul Kantner/Jefferson Starship) (1983) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/10/paul-kantnerjefferson-starship-planet.html

'Nuclear Furniture' (1983) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-87-jefferson-starship-nuclear.html

'Jefferson Airplane' (1989) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/jefferson-airplane-1989.html

Non-Album Songs 1966-1984 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/jefferson-airplanestarship-non-album.html

The Best Unreleased Recordings 1966-1974 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/jefferson-airplane-best-unreleased.html

Surviving TV Footage 1966-1989 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/jefferson-airplane-surviving-tv-footage.html

Tribute Special: Paul Kantner and Signe Anderson http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/tribute-special-paul-kantner-and-signe.html

Live/Solo/Compilation/Hot Tuna Albums Part One 1966: 1978  http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/jefferson-airplanestarship.html

Live/Solo/Compilation/Hot Tuna Albums Part Two 1979-2013 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/jefferson-airplanestarship_16.html

Essay: Why Flying In Formation Was So Special For The Jeffersons https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/jefferson-airplane-essay-why-flying-in.html

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