Paul Kantner was a founding member of Jefferson Airplane (that's right kids, no 'The). In fact, he was one of the few present from beginning to end. Grace Slick wasn't the original singer. She joined in time for the second album. Marty Balin left after Volunteers. Drummers came and went. Jack and Jorma hung on until the end. When they left, the band morphed into Jefferson Starship.
Kantner hung on in that configuration for quite a while. When he left that group, the band dropped the 'Jefferson' moniker and carried on as just plain Starship. Kantner had to initiate legal proceedings to get this removed.
Paul was the sci-fi folkie geek of the band. His contributions to the band for the most part stuck to that theme.
His first solo album, released in 1970, was the first to carry the Jefferson Starship moniker. It was really so much a band as it was a grouping of San Francisco's finest. Members of Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead and CSNY made up the band.
The cover is an unauthorized piece of Russian art credited to CCCP. Kantner said he didn't feel bad about it as the Russians bootlegged several of his recordings for distribution in the USSR.
The inside gatefold was printed on metallic stock and featured a drawing of Kantner with very leafy hair.
The back features what is reported to be Jerry Garcia in a box being carried by a boob balloon with wings.
Not to mention a custom inner sleeve featuring a trippy 'time switch' from the City of LA (these are actually near every traffic signal in the city).
Original pressings also came with a booklet with spatterings of color. These were replaced soon thereafter with a monochrome version and later deleted entirely.
This is the last Airplane related product to be released on RCA. They would soon launch their vanity label through RCA called Grunt Records.
No comments:
Post a Comment