Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner dead at 74

[wfgodot]

I think this is the fourth musician lately to pass at age 74.

:rose: DAN HICKS :rose:


Dan Hicks, Bandleader of the Hot Licks, Dies at 74

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/a...icks-dies-at-74.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

A heavy Bay Area toll extracted, the beginning of this new year -- Paul Kantner; Signe Toly Anderson; Dan Hicks of the Charlatans:

[video=youtube;jQSJBSl9SM0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQSJBSl9SM0[/video]

 

[Lilibet]

I and some friends went to The Matrix one night specifically to see The Jefferson Airplane for the first time because Ralph J. Gleason had been talking them up a whole lot. I imagine it was very early on while Signe was still with them. It was a long long time ago. I am pretty sure they often played on Sundays in the Panhandle (a section of Golden Gate Park) a few streets away from Haight Street.

I liked their music but I didn't follow them that closely. I sort of preferred Big Brother and the Holding Company (and Janis Joplin) who also played in the park and here and there around town. I really liked Janis. And, I was also a much bigger follower of The Beatles, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, The Carter Family, Richard and Mimi Farina, The Jim Kweskin Jug Band and that sort of ilk.

Maybe one of these days I'll dig out some old photos. The memories certainly have been flooding back as some of these people die off.

BBM

Our taste in music at that time was really similar i.b. nora! My husband and I (married in Sept 1966) were folkies who later dabbled in rock. We first saw Jefferson Airplane with Signe in July 1966 at the Berkeley Folk Festival. I liked them, but I remember thinking "What are they doing at a folk festival?!" Here's a link with a little history of that appearance in Berkeley.

https://books.google.com/books?id=6...eley folk festival jefferson airplane&f=false

By the time we moved to the Haight during The Summer of Love June-September 1967 Grace Slick had replaced Signe. I always preferred Signe's gentler vibe. And it is always a fun trivia question to stump people by asking who Grace Slick replaced. Signe and Paul weren't that old, so I'm really sorry to hear of their passing.

We got to see so many bands in the Panhandle or at the Fillmore...Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Airplane, Janis and Big Brother, Steve Miller, etc. Janis and Big Brother practiced in a garage up the street from us and I can still remember peeking through the crack between the doors to see them. What memories! I could go on and on, as we all could, but it would derail the thread. I'm just glad we didn't miss it!

While trying to figure out online what year we had seen Airplane in Berkeley, I ran across a set list for those years. Here's the link in case anyone's memory is getting as old and foggy as mine.

http://home.myfairpoint.net/srabbot/airplane/jabase.htm