Ignition
Jefferson Airplane
Initial release : 2001
RCA 68032
Box set containing the first 4 Jefferson Airplane albums; Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, Surrealistic Pillow, After Bathing At Baxter’s and Crown Of Creation. Mono and Stereo version of the first two albums are included. Jerry Garcia was heavily involved with the recording of Surrealistic Pillow and plays on at least two of the songs on that album.
Tracks
Jefferson Airplane Takes Off: Stereo version
• Blues from an Airplane (Balin/Spence)
• Let Me In (Balin/Kantner)
• Bringing Me Down (Balin/Kantner)
• It’s No Secret (Balin)
• Tobacco Road (Warnick)
• Runnin’ ‘Round This World (Balin/Kantner)
• Come Up the Years (Balin/Kantner)
• Run Around (Balin/Kantner)
• Let’s Get Together (Powers)
• Don’t Slip Away (Balin/Spence)
• Chauffeur Blues (Melrose)
• And I Like It (Balin/Kaukonen)
Jefferson Airplane Takes Off: Mono version
• Blues from an Airplane (Balin/Spence)
• Let Me In (Balin/Kantner)
• Bringing Me Down (Balin/Kantner)
• It’s No Secret (Balin)
• Tobacco Road (Warnick)
• Runnin’ ‘Round This World (Balin/Kantner)
• Come Up the Years (Balin/Kantner)
• Run Around (Balin/Kantner)
• Let’s Get Together (Powers)
• Don’t Slip Away (Balin/Spence)
• Chauffeur Blues (Melrose)
• And I Like It (Balin/kaukonen)
Surrealistic Pillow: Stereo version
• She Has Funny Cars (Balin/Kaukonen)
• Somebody to Love (Slick)
• My Best Friend (Spence)
• Today (Balin/Kantner)
• Comin’ Back to Me (Balin)
• 3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds (Balin)
• D.C.B.A. (Kantner)
• How Do You Feel (Mastin)
• Embryonic Journey (Kaukonen)
• White Rabbit (Slick)
• Plastic Fantastic Lover (Balin)
Surrealistic Pillow: Mono version
• She Has Funny Cars (Balin/Kaukonen)
• Somebody to Love (Slick)
• My Best Friend (Spence)
• Today (Balin/Kantner)
• Comin’ Back to Me (Balin)
• 3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds (Balin)
• D.C.B.A. (Kantner)
• How Do You Feel (Matin)
• Embryonic Journey (Kaukonen)
• White Rabbit (Slick)
• Plastic Fantastic Lover (Balin)
After Bathing At Baxter’s
• The Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil (Kantner)
• A Small Package of Value Will Come to You Shortly (Blackman/Dryden/Thompson)
• Young Girl Sunday Blues (Balin/Kantner)
• Martha (Kentner)
• Wild Tyme (H) (Kantner)
• The Last Will of the Castle (Kaukonen)
• Rejoyce (Slick)
• Watch Her Ride (Kantner)
• Spare Chaynge (Casady/Dryden/Kaukonen)
• Two Heads (Slick)
• Won’t You Try Saturday Afternoon (Kentner)
Crown Of Creation
• Lather (Slick)
• In Time (Balin/Kantner)
• Triad (Crosby)
• Star Track (Kaukonen)
• Share a Little Joke (Balin)
• Chushingura (Dryden)
• If You Feel (Balin/Blackman)
• Crown of Creation (Kantner)
• Ice Cream Phoenix (Cockey/Kaukonen)
• Greasy Heart (Slick)
• The House at Pooneil Corners (Balin/Kantner)
Musicians
Credits
• Engineer – David Hassinger, Richie Schmitt
• Producer – Rick Jarrard, Matthew Katz, Al Schmitt, Tommy Oliver
• Digital Transfers – Mike Hartry, Eddie Tallia
• Audio Restoration – Bill Lacey
• Vault Research – Eddie Eddings
• Tape Research, Reissue Supervisor – Paul Williams
• Artwork – Ron Cobb
• Photography – Herbert Greene
• Liner Notes – Jeff Tamarkin, Ralph J. Gleason
Related releases
The music in this box set was originally released on;
• Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, Jefferson Airplane, 1966
• Surrealistic Pillow, Jefferson Airplane, 1967
• After Bathing At Baxter’s, Jefferson Airplane, 1967
• Crown Of Creation, Jefferson Airplane, 1968
Jefferson Airplane is an American rock band from San Francisco, a pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement.
The Airplane was the ‘flagship’ act for the burgeoning psychedelic music scene that developed in San Francisco in the mid-1960s. They were the first San Francisco group to perform at a dance concert — the seminal ‘happening’ at the Longshoremen’s Hall in October 1965 — they were the first to sign a contract with a major record label, the first to appear on national television, the first to score hit records and the first to tour to the US East Coast and Europe.
Throughout the late 1960s Jefferson Airplane was one of the most sought-after (and highly-paid) concert acts in the world, their records sold in great quantities, they scored two US Top 10 hit singles and a string of Top 20 albums, and their 1967 LP Surrealistic Pillow is still widely regarded as one of the key recordings of the so-called “Summer of Love.”
Successive incarnations of the band have performed under different names, reflecting changing times and performer lineups: Jefferson Starship, and later simply Starship before becoming Jefferson Starship The Next Generation in 1991.
Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
History
Formation and early career
Jefferson Airplane formed in San Francisco during the summer of 1965, emerging from what was called the San Francisco Bay folk music boom (see American folk music revival). Although the Airplane were considered the pre-eminent San Francisco group of the period, Kantner was in fact the only native San Franciscan member. The group’s founder was singer Marty Balin, who had established a minor career as a pop singer in the early Sixties and made several recordings under his own name. In mid-1965 Balin raised funds to open a new nightclub, The Matrix and soon after he met folk musician Paul Kantner at another local club, the Drinking Gourd. Kantner had started out performing on the Bay Area folk circuit in the early Sixties, alongside fellow ‘folkies’ Jerry Garcia, David Crosby and Janis Joplin and he has cited folk group The Kingston Trio as a strong early influence. He briefly moved to Los Angeles ca. 1964 where he worked in a folk duo with future Airplane/Starship member David Freiberg (who subsequently joined Quicksilver Messenger Service). Balin and Kantner then set about selecting other musicians to form a group that would be the “house band” at the Matrix. Balin heard female vocalist Signe Toly Anderson at the Drinking Gourd and invited her to be the group’s co-lead singer; however Anderson became pregnant with her first child in late 1965, which led to her eventual departure in late 1966. Kantner next recruited an old friend, a highly proficient blues guitarist called Jorma Kaukonen, originally from Washington DC. Kaukonen had moved to California in the early Sixties and met Kantner while studying at Santa Clara University ca. 1962. Kaukonen was invited to jam with the new band and although initially reluctant to join, he was won over after playing his guitar through a tape delay device that was part of the sound system used by Ken Kesey for his famous Acid Test parties. The original lineup was completed by drummer Jerry Peloquin and acoustic bassist Bob Harvey. The origin of the group’s name is often disputed. “Jefferson airplane” is a slang term for a used paper match split open to hold a marijuana joint that has been smoked too short to hold without burning the hands — an improvised roach clip (Margolis & Clorfene 1970). An urban legend claims this was the origin of the band’s name, but according to band member Jorma Kaukonen, the name was invented by his friend Steve Talbot as a parody of blues names such as Blind Lemon Jefferson. [1] A 2007 press release quoted Kaukonen as saying: “I had this friend [Talbot] in Berkeley who came up with funny names for people,” explains Kaukonen. “His name for me was Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane (for blues pioneer Blind Lemon Jefferson). When the guys were looking for band names and nobody could come up with something, I remember saying, ‘You want a silly band name? I got a silly band name for you!'” The group made its first public appearance at the opening night of The Matrix club on August 13, 1965. Peloquin was a seasoned musician whose disdain for the others’ drug use was a factor in his departure just a few weeks after the group began. Although he was not a drummer, singer-guitarist Skip Spence (who later founded Moby Grape) was then invited to take over the drum stool by Balin. They drew inspiration from groups such as The Beatles, The Byrds, and The Lovin’ Spoonful, gradually developing a more pop-oriented ‘electric’ sound. The other members soon decided that Harvey’s bass playing was not up to par, so he was replaced in October 1965 by accomplished guitarist-bassist Jack Casady, whose brother Chick was an old friend of Kaukonen’s from Washington DC. Casady played his first gig with the Airplane at a college concert in Berkeley, California, two weeks after he arrived in San Francisco. The group’s performing skills improved rapidly and they quickly gained a strong following in and around San Francisco, aided by rave reviews from veteran music journalist Ralph J. Gleason, the jazz critic of the San Francisco Chronicle; after seeing the band at the Matrix in late 1965 he proclaimed them “one of the best bands ever.” Gleason’s support raised the band’s profile greatly, and within three months their manager Matthew Katz was fielding offers from record companies, although they were yet to perform outside the Bay Area. Two very significant early concerts featuring the Airplane were held in late 1965. The first was the now-legendary dance at the Longshoremen’s Hall in San Francisco on 16 October 1965, the first of many such ‘happenings’ in the Bay Area, and it was here that Ralph Gleason first saw the Airplane perform. At this concert they were supported by another local folk-rock group The Great Society, which featured Grace Slick as lead singer, whom Kantner met for the first time that night. A few weeks later, on 6 November, they headlined a benefit concert for the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the first of many engagements for rising entrepreneur Bill Graham, who eventually became their manager. In November 1965 Jefferson Airplane signed a recording contract with RCA Victor, which included a then unheard-of advance of US$25,000. On 10 December 1965 they played at the first Bill Graham show at the Fillmore ballroom, supported by The Great Society and others, and they also appeared at a number of Family Dog shows promoted by Chet Helms. The group’s first single was Balin’s “It’s No Secret” (a tune he had written with Otis Redding in mind); the B-side was “Runnin’ Round The World”, the song that subsequently led to the band’s first major clash with RCA. Their debut LP Jefferson Airplane Takes Off was completed in March 1966, and soon after, during the spring of 1966, Skip Spence abruptly quit the band. He was eventually replaced by an experienced jazz drummer recruited from Los Angeles, Spencer Dryden, who played his first show with the Airplane at the Berkeley Folk Festival on 4 July 1966.
Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (RCA Victor, 1965)
Manager Matthew Katz was fired in August and the legal fallout from this action was to continue for several years. After Katz’s sacking Balin’s friend and flatmate Bill Thompson was installed as their permanent road manager and temporary band manager. Thompson, a staunch friend and ally of the band, was a former Chronicle staffer who first convinced reviewers Ralph Gleason and John Wasserman to see the band. Thanks to Gleason’s influence, Thompson was able to book the group for prestigious appearances at the Berkeley Folk Festival and the Monterey Jazz Festival. Jefferson Airplane takes Off was released in September 1966. Folk music very much influenced the album, which included such staples as John D. Loudermilk’s “Tobacco Road” and Dino Valente’s “Let’s Get Together”, as well as original ballads “It’s No Secret” and “Come Up the Years.” The LP garnered considerable attention in the USA and eventually became a gold album. RCA initially pressed only 15,000 copies, but it sold more than 10,000 in San Francisco alone, prompting the label to reprint it. It was at this point that the company deleted the track “Runnin’ All Over The World” (which had appeared on early mono pressings), because executives objected to the use of the word “trip” in the lyrics. They also substituted altered versions of two other tracks (“Let Me In” and “Run Around”) because of similar concerns about lyrics. The original pressings of Takes Off featuring “Runnin’ ‘Round The World” are now rare collectors’ items worth thousands of dollars.
Grace Slick, mid-1960s
Signe Anderson gave birth to her daughter in May 1966, but by October she had decided that it was impossible to continue performing, so she reluctantly announced her departure. Her final gig with the Airplane took place at the Fillmore on 15 October 1966. The following night, her replacement Grace Slick made her first appearance with Jefferson Airplane. Grace, a former professional model, was already well-known to the band — she had attended the Airplane’s debut gig at the Matrix in 1965 and her previous group The Great Society had often supported the Airplane in concert. Slick’s recruitment proved pivotal to the Airplane’s commercial breakthrough — she possessed a powerful and supple contralto voice, well-suited to the group’s amplified psychedelic music, she was strikingly good looking, and her dynamic stage presence greatly enhanced the group’s live impact. The Great Society had recorded an early version of “Somebody To Love” (under the title “Someone To Love”) as the B-side of their only single, “Free Advice”; it was produced by Sylvester Stewart (soon to become famous as Sly Stone) but it reportedly took more than 50 takes to achieve a satisfactory rendition. The Great Society decided to split in the autumn of 1966 and they played their last show on 11 September. Soon after, Slick was asked to join Jefferson Airplane by Jack Casady (whose musicianship was a major influence on her decision to join) and her Great Society contract was bought out for US$750.
Commercial breakthrough
In December 1966 Jefferson Airplane featured prominently in a Newsweek article about the booming San Francisco music scene, one of the first in what became an avalanche of similar media reports that prompted a massive influx of young people to the city and contributed to the heavy commercialization and exploitation of the local “hippie” culture. Around the beginning of 1967 Bill Graham took over from Bill Thompson as the group’s manager and in January 1967 they traveled to Los Angeles to record the tracks for their next LP, as well as making their first visit to the US East Coast. On 14 January 1967 Jefferson Airplane headlined alongside The Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service the now-legendary “Human Be-In”, the famous all-day ‘happening’ staged in Golden Gate Park which is now generally acknowledged as the one of the key events leading up to the so-called “Summer of Love.” During this period the band gained their first international recognition when they were namechecked by rising British pop star Donovan, who saw them during his stint on the US West Coast in early 1966 and mentioned them in his song “The Fat Angel,” which subsequently appeared on his Sunshine Superman LP.
Jefferson Airplane’s breakthrough 1967 LP, the psychedelic rock classic Surrealistic Pillow Jefferson Airplane’s second LP, and the album that launched them to international fame, was Surrealistic Pillow. It was recorded in Los Angeles over 13 days with producer Rick Jarrard at a cost of US$8000. Released in February 1967, the LP entered the Billboard album chart on March 25 and charted for over a year, peaking at #3. The album was a major international success, and alongside The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it is widely regarded as one of the seminal albums of the so-called “Summer of Love.” The name Surrealistic Pillow was suggested by the ‘shadow’ producer of the album, Jerry Garcia, when he mentioned that, as a whole, the album sounded “as Surrealistic as a pillow.” The record company would not allow Garcia’s considerable contributions to the album to garner him a “Producer” credit, so Garcia is listed in the album’s credits as “spiritual advisor.” As well as their two best-known tracks, “White Rabbit” and the rousing anthem “Somebody to Love,” the album featured “My Best Friend” by former drummer Skip Spence, Balin’s driving “Plastic Fantastic Lover,” and the atmospheric Balin-Kantner ballad “Today.” A reminder of their earlier folk incarnation was Kaukonen’s solo acoustic guitar tour de force, “Embryonic Journey” (his first composition), which referenced contemporary acoustic guitar masters such as John Fahey and helped to establish the popular genre exemplified by acoustic guitarist Leo Kottke. The first single from the album, Spence’s “My Best Friend,” failed to chart, but the next two singles rocketed the group to prominence. Both “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit” become major US hits when released as singles — the former reached #5 and the latter #8 on the Billboard singles chart — and by late 1967 the Airplane were national and international stars and had become one of the hottest (and highest-paid) groups in America. This phase of their career peaked with their famous performance at the epochal Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967 and two songs from their set were subsequently included in the D.A. Pennebaker film documentary of the event. Monterey showcased leading bands from several major music “scenes” including New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and England and the resulting TV and film coverage gave national (and international) exposure to groups that had previously had only regional fame. All these bands were also greatly assisted by appearances on nationally syndicated TV shows such as the Johnny Carson Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show. The Airplane’s famous appearance on the Sullivan show performing “White Rabbit” was (fortunately) videotaped in color and augmented by recent developments in video techniques. It has been frequently re-screened and is notable for its pioneering use of the Chroma key process to simulate the Airplane’s customary psychedelic light show.
Change of direction
The membership of Jefferson Airplane remained relatively stable until 1970, during which time they recorded five more albums and performed extensively in the USA and Europe, but the group’s music underwent a significant transformation after Surrealistic Pillow and the influence of founder Marty Balin began to wane after their first commercial peak.
After Bathing At Baxter’s (RCA Victor, 1967)
The band delved deep into acid rock with their third LP, After Bathing at Baxter’s. The product of many sessions over several months, it was released on 27 November 1967, and it entered the charts in December, eventually peaking at #27. Its famous cover, drawn by renowned artist and cartoonist Ron Cobb, features a whimsical re-imagining of the group’s Haight-Ashbury house on Fulton Street, depicted as a Heath Robinson-inspired flying machine soaring about the chaos of American commercial culture. Key influences on the group’s new direction were the emergence of Jimi Hendrix and in particular the first headlining US tour by British supergroup Cream, which prompted many groups including the Airplane to adopt a ‘heavier’ sound and to place a greater emphasis on improvisation. This was evident on Baxter’s, which took more than four months to record, with little interference from the nominal producer Al Schmitt. Where the previous LP had consisted entirely of short 2-3 minute songs, the new album was dominated by long multi-part suites, demonstrating the group’s growing engagement with psychedelic rock. It also marked the emergence of Kantner and Slick as the band’s major composers and the concurrent decline as major contributor of Marty Balin, who was becoming increasingly disenchanted with the “star trips” and inflated egos that their runaway commercial success had produced. Baxter’s also marked the end of the Airplane’s brief run of success on the singles chart. Both “White Rabbit” and “Somebody To Love” were US Top 10 hits, but the single lifted from Baxter’s, “The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil”, peaked at a mediocre #43. None of their subsequent singles made it into the Top 50 and several did not chart at all. Despite this, Jefferson Airplane continued to enjoy significant success as “album” artists and between 1967 and 1972 they scored a remarkable run of eight consecutive Top 20 albums in the USA, with both Surrealistic Pillow and Crown of Creation making the Top 10.
1968-1970
In February 1968 manager Bill Graham was fired after Grace Slick delivered her “either he goes or I go” ultimatum to the group. Bill Thompson took over as permanent manager and he set about consolidating the group’s financial security, establishing Icebag Corp to oversee the band’s publishing interests and purchasing a 20-room mansion at 2400 Fulton Street in the Haight-Ashbury district, which became the band’s office and communal residence. The Airplane undertook their first major tour of Europe in the late summer and early autumn of 1968, co-headlining with The Doors, performing in the Netherlands, England, Belgium, Germany and Sweden. A notorious incident involving Jim Morrison took place at a concert in Amsterdam; while they were performing “Plastic Fantastic Lover,” a heavily intoxicated Morrison appeared on stage and began dancing. As the group played faster and faster, Morrison spun around wildly until he finally fell senseless on the stage at Marty Balin’s feet. Not surprisingly, Morrison was unable to perform his set with the Doors and Ray Manzarek was forced to sing all the vocals.
Crown of Creation (RCA Victor, 1968)
Jefferson Airplane’s fourth LP Crown of Creation (released in September 1968) was a transitional record, more concise and structured than its predecessor, and much more commercially successful, peaking at #6 on the album chart. Notable tracks include Grace Slick’s Lather, which is said to be about her affair with drummer Spencer Dryden. “Triad” was a mildly risqué David Crosby piece that had famously been rejected by The Byrds because they deemed its subject matter (a ménage à trois) to be too “hot” to record. Slick’s searing sex and drug anthem “Greasy Heart” had been released as a single in March 1968. Several tracks recorded for the LP were left off the album, including the freeform Grace Slick / Frank Zappa collaboration “Would You Like A Snack?” In February 1969 RCA released the live album Bless Its Pointed Little Head, which was culled from late 1968 live concert performances at the Fillmore West on October 24-26 and the Fillmore East on November 28-30. It became their fourth US Top 20 album, peaking at #17. In early August 1969 the band headlined at a free concert in New York’s Central Park and a few days later they performed in an early “morning maniac music” slot at the Woodstock festival, for which the group was augmented by noted British session keyboard player Nicky Hopkins. When interviewed about Woodstock by Jeff Tamarkin in 1992, Paul Kantner still recalled it with fondness, although Grace Slick and Spencer Dryden had less than rosy memories. Immediately after their Woodstock performance, on the last day of that event, they played a live concert on The Dick Cavett Show; then sessions began for their next album using new 16-track facilities at the Wally Heider Studio in San Francisco and this proved to be the last recordings by the “classic” lineup of the group. Volunteers was released in the USA in November 1969 and it continued their run of Top 20 LPs, peaking at #13 early in 1970. It was their most political venture, showcasing the group’s vocal opposition to the Vietnam War and documenting their reaction to the increasingly repressive political atmosphere in the United States. The title track, “Volunteers,” “We Can Be Together,” “Good Shepherd,” and the post-apocalyptic “Wooden Ships” were all highlights. The album track “Wooden Ships,” which Paul Kantner co-wrote with David Crosby and Stephen Stills, was also recorded by Crosby, Stills & Nash on their debut album, but as both groups released the song the same year and as it was co-written by members of both bands, both versions are considered to be original versions of the song.
Volunteers (RCA Victor, 1969)
RCA voiced objections to the phrase “up against the wall, motherfucker” in the lyrics of Kantner’s song “We Can Be Together,” but the group were able to prevent it from being censored by pointing out that RCA had already allowed the offending word to be included on the cast album of the rock musical Hair, although the company did replace it with the word “fred” in the accompanying lyric sheet. In December that year they played at the infamous Altamont Free Concert held at the Altamont Speedway in California. The concert, which was headlined by The Rolling Stones, was marred by crowd violence. Marty Balin was knocked out during a scuffle with Hells Angels members who had been hired to act as “security”. The event became notorious for the now-famous “Gimme Shelter Incident,” because of the fatal stabbing of black teenager Meredith Hunter in front of the stage by Hells Angels “guards” after he allegedly pulled out a revolver during the Stones’ performance (this incident was the centerpiece of the documentary film Gimme Shelter). Spencer Dryden quit the band in February 1970, burned out by four years on the “acid merry-go-round” and deeply disillusioned by the events of Altamont which, he later recalled “… did not look like a bunch of happy hippies in streaming colors. It looked more like sepia-toned Hieronymus Bosch.” He took time off and later returned to music in 1972 as a drummer for the Grateful Dead spin-off band New Riders Of The Purple Sage. Dryden’s replacement was Joey Covington, an L.A. musician who had been sitting in with Hot Tuna during 1969. Touring continued through the spring and summer of 1970 but the group’s only new recording that year was the single, “Have You Seen the Saucers?” b/w “Mexico.” The B-side was an attack on President Richard Nixon’s Operation Intercept, which had been implemented to curtail the flow of marijuana into the United States, while the A-side marked the beginning of a science-fiction obsession that Kantner would explore with his music over the rest of the decade.
Jefferson Airplane Takes Off is the debut album of San Francisco rock band Jefferson Airplane. It was released on RCA Victor Records in 1966. The personnel on this LP differs from the later “classic” lineup, and the music is a more folk-rock style rather than the harder psychedelic sound for which the band later became famous. Signe Toly Anderson was the female vocalist while Skip Spence played the drums. Both left the group shortly after the album’s release to be replaced by Grace Slick and Spencer Dryden respectively.
Surrealistic Pillow is an album by American psychedelic band Jefferson Airplane, released in February of 1967. Original drummer Alexander ‘Skip’ Spence had left the band in mid-1966, replaced by a jazz drummer from Los Angeles, Spencer Dryden. Singer Signe Toly Anderson departed soon after, and by the Fall of 1966 the group hired new singer Grace Slick, who brought from her previous band The Great Society the two songs that would become the Airplane’s biggest Top 40 hits, “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love,” the latter composed by her then-brother-in-law. Both Slick and Dryden debuted with the band on records with this album and its attendant singles, thus completing the best-known line-up of the group, which would remain stable until Dryden’s departure in 1970. It’s also considered to be one of the quintessential albums of the counterculture movement/social revolution. Jefferson Airplane’s fusion of folk rock and psychedelia was original at the time, in line with musical developments pioneered by The Byrds, The Mamas and The Papas, and Bob Dylan. Surrealistic Pillow was the first blockbuster psychedelic album by a band from San Francisco, announcing to the world the active bohemian scene that had developed there starting with The Beats during the 1950s, extending and changing through the 1960s into the Haight-Ashbury counterculture. Subsequently, the exposure generated by the Airplane and others wrought great changes to that counterculture, and by 1968 the ensuing national media attention had precipitated a very different San Francisco scene than had existed in 1966. San Francisco photographer, Herb Greene photographed the band for the album’s cover art. Some controversy exists as to the role of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia in the making of the album. His reputed presence on several tracks is not corroborated by RCA paperwork and is denied by producer Rick Jarrard. Surrealistic Pillow was originally released as RCA Victor LPM/LSP 3766, and peaked at #3 on Billboard’s Pop Albums chart, driven by “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love,” which peaked at #8 and #5 respectively on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The album was mixed in both mono and stereo, and both mixes are available on a November 2001 reissue, initially as part of the Ignition box set; another stereo reissue appeared on August 19, 2003, with seven bonus tracks, including the mono A-sides of “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit.” The 2003 reissue was produced by Bob Irwin. In 2003, the album was ranked number 146 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
After Bathing at Baxter’s is the third album by the San Franciscan rock band Jefferson Airplane, which was released in 1967. Unlike Surrealistic Pillow, released earlier the same year, After Bathing at Baxter’s is classified as psychedelic rock because it eschews the more commercial type pop songs, such as “Somebody to Love”, that were performed on the former LP. As such, it was a watershed album; they were now a much heavier rock group. Jorma Kaukonen’s electric guitar was especially more to the forefront in both volume and tone. Divided into “suites”, this musical shift is typified by lengthier and more experimental compositions such as the nine-minute instrumental “Spare Chaynge” and Grace Slick’s mammoth and unusual “reJoyce”, a homage to James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses”, with its quirky arrangement and Jack Casady’s stentorian bass-line. Many of the album tracks reflect the band’s heavy use of the drug LSD. The cover art is by cartoonist, artist, writer, film designer, and film director Ron Cobb.
Crown of Creation is the fourth album by the San Franciscan rock band Jefferson Airplane and was released in 1968. Like its predecessor, “After Bathing at Baxter’s”, the album concentrates more on artistic development rather than just pure commercial concerns. The David Crosby penned “Triad” is the only non original track. It was previously rejected for release by his group The Byrds as being too risque.