In Memoriam--Marty Balin

Another "cheat" post for this theme, in honor of the great Marty Balin, one of the founders of Jefferson Airplane, whose blue-eyed soul voice featured in many of the Airplane's greatest songs, as well as probably Jefferson Starship's best. And he got knocked out on stage by Hell's Angels at Altamont.  Back in 2016, over at Cover Me, I wrote a long birthday piece about Balin, featuring covers of some of his Airplane, Starship, and solo songs.  You can read that here.  I was a big Airplane/Starship fan back in high school, as you probably can guess from that Cover Me piece, and these two, not to mention a few things on this site.

Balin died in September, at the age of 76.  Here's his obit from Rolling Stone.  Grace Slick, with all of her substance abuse and health issues, lives on--she'll be 80 in October, by the way.

Jokes, Pranks & Fools: Fooled Around And Fell In Love

Elvin Bishop: Fooled Around And Fell In Love
[purchase]

I really wanted to write about a prank, but the only two musical pranks that I could think of were “Paul is Dead,” which would require essentially regurgitating the stuff that I linked to in this, and “Rickrolling,” which I really don’t find interesting. I also thought about going to the Monty Python well again, but decided against it. But this is a good song, by an artist that I’ve never written about, so here we go.

Elvin Bishop has had a long career as a blues guitarist, after he decided not to finish his degree in physics at the University of Chicago and join the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 1963. He formed his own band in the 70s, and had a minor hit with the song “Travelin’ Shoes,” from an album on the Allman Brothers’ label, Capricorn Records, that featured contributions from Dickey Betts, Charlie Daniels, and Sly Stone, among others. The follow up to that album was almost finished, but the producer said that they needed one more song. Bishop suggested “Fooled Around And Fell In Love,” but they were all unhappy with the way Bishop’s vocals sounded. In all of the interviews that I’ve read about the song, Bishop is incredibly self-deprecating about his voice, which he considers to be average, at best—although he believes that this has forced him to write better songs.

Bishop suggested that his backup singer, Mickey Thomas, who he acknowledged had an incredible voice, give it a whirl, and rock and roll history was made. “Fooled Around” was a #3 hit on the Billboard charts, and has been a staple on FM radio, and on soundtracks, maybe most notably Guardians of the Galaxy. It is also regularly covered.

After that, Mickey Thomas left Bishop’s band, tried some solo work, and became the lead singer of Jefferson Starship, recording one pretty good album, and a series of less good albums, ultimately (after litigation) dropping the “Jefferson” and recording something that is regularly on lists of the worst song ever recorded. (My Cover Me piece here links to a couple of such lists). Interestingly, the drummer on “Fooled Around,” Donny Baldwin, later also joined Jefferson Starship, but in 1989, in Scranton, PA, he attacked Thomas, who needed reconstructive surgery. Attacking your lead singer is generally a bad idea, and Baldwin was fired, but as history has shown, the Airplane/Starship revolving door is always turning, and Baldwin rejoined a Mickey Thomas-less version of the band in 2008.

Bishop, on the other hand, returned to the relative obscurity of the blues world, continuing to record and tour both as a leader and sideman. When he performs the song these days, he either does it as an instrumental, or with his background singers stepping forward—and occasionally with Thomas. (who also performed the song with Starship). He’s had a couple of Grammy nominations, in the Best Traditional Blues Album category, losing out to B.B. King and The Rolling Stones (no shame there), and is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. And, one can assume, Bishop continues to cash royalty checks for “Fooled Around,” demonstrating that he is nobody’s fool.

In memoriam: Paul Kantner

purchase [Jefferson Airplane Volunteers]

By about the time that <Blows Against the Empire> came out, I had moved on. That said, I had a copy of <Takes Off> and <Volunteers> more or less as soon as they came out. Certainly, their Woodstock performance was critical to my appreciation of Jefferson Airplane. The view they espoused or symbolized was equally formative to my perception of music and the world in general. But somehow, about the time of the switch to Starship in place of Airplane, they lost me. Might have been my developing musical tastes, the offer of so much more in that realm than what they were into. But it never took away from my sense and recognition that they were seminal.

When I think Airplane, I call up Kantner, Slick, Balin, Casady, Kaukonen. I likewise call up Hot Tuna.
I cant say that Paul Kantner stood out for me - except that he was in it all along. Co-founder. It's not like I studied his guitar chops or anything. But that is from a perspective somewhat not too focused on who's who - I just knew that he was critical to the band.

There was certainly something unusual about the band at the time of <Takes Off>. Partly it was their sound - kind of raw but still harmonic. Partly it was the message they seemed to represent (singing "Our generation's got soul" - in whatever connotations you wish to ascribe - and the message/vision became even better defined with <Volunteers/We Can Be Together> ...  "we are all outlaws in the eyes of America ... to find a better time .. Up against the wall mother fu**er .. tear down the wall". Woah . Hold on a minute (shades of Nixon or someone else), . Part of the West Coast/SF scene but more driven than the Dead in their sound and their message. Friends... we are talking 1969 - that's almost 50 years ago... and look where we are now.

Maybe even more poignant and serendipitous in a sad way: the fact that Signe Anderson (the voice on <Takes Off>) happened to die on exactly the same day that Paul Kantner did. Anniversary coming up in a week or so: Jan 28.

 

Getting There: Starship

Paul Kantner & Jefferson Starship: Starship
[purchase]
This is not the Jefferson Starship of “Miracles” (which is still a great song, by a good band, in my opinion, despite its lack of critical respect) or the Starship of “We Built This City” (a bad song by a bad band, in my opinion, consistent with its critical loathing). This Jefferson Starship was what Paul Kantner, of the recently disintegrated Jefferson Airplane, decided to call the band that recorded a science fiction/popular revolution concept album called “Blows Against the Empire” originally released in 1970. The album included contributions from Kantner, Grace Slick, Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Jack Casady, David Freiberg and others.
I came to this album, which became one of my favorites, in high school, probably 5 or 6 years after it was released, never having heard it before. I, like many others who listened to classic rock radio in the mid-70’s, became a fan of Jefferson Starship and bought “Red Octopus” because of “Miracles.” In what was probably the first time my obsession with music manifested itself, my friend Chris and I started working our way through the Starship and Airplane discography, mostly by buying albums from the Korvette’s cutout bins. There was no Allmusic or Wikipedia, so we learned about the albums by reading books and magazine articles, or by just buying what the store had and listening. Our exploration of the catalogue led us to listen to classics, like the Airplane’s “Surrealistic Pillow” and not-so-classics such as Slick’s “Manhole.” The first time I heard “Blows,” easily the best of the Kantner/Slick solo projects during this era, I fell in love with its goofy, but sincere, idealism and the loose, well played music. I read the liner notes booklet so many times that it fell apart.
The story of “Blows Against the Empire” tells of a revolutionary band that steals a government built spaceship with the intention of traveling through space and creating a utopian society. Its theme fits the era of its recording and release, during the anti-war movement, the Reagan governorship of California and the Nixon presidency, and shortly after the first moon landing. The music, written by the performers, and others, including Marty Balin and Rosalie Sorrells, includes rock, folk and noise, but the bulk of the album is beautiful jammy folk rock, with great vocal harmonies and guitar playing. “Starship”, the finale, features Kantner on acoustic guitar and vocal and Slick on vocal and keyboards, with Garcia on lead guitar, Crosby, Nash and Freiberg (of Quicksilver Messenger Service and later versions of Jefferson Starship) on vocals, and Harvey Brooks (of Electric Flag, and who worked with Dylan and Miles Davis, among others) on bass.
It took a while for the album to be released on CD, and I remember buying it and enjoying it for the first time in years. It is still a good listen, even if its themes of revolution and space travel seem a little dated now (although with Newt Gingrich’s pledge to build a moon base if elected president, maybe Kantner will rally his friends and try to hijack the moonship).