Photo by Christopher Michel
Paul Kantner was born 82 years ago today.
Kantner co-founded Jefferson Airplane and its spin-off band, Jefferson Starship. Although the band was originally formed by Marty Balin, Kantner eventually became the main man of Jefferson Airplane and captained the group through various successor incarnations of Jefferson Starship.
Kantner had the longest continuous membership with the band. At times, he was its only member.
A political anarchist, Kantner once advocated the use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD for mind expansion and spiritual growth, and was a prominent advocate of the legalization of marijuana. At the end of his life, he said he no longer did drugs.
When he became a teenager, he went into total revolt against all forms of authority, and became determined to become a protest folk singer in the manner of his musical hero, Pete Seeger.
During the summer of 1965, singer Marty Balin saw Kantner perform at the Drinking Gourd, a San Francisco folk club, and recruited him as part of the original Jefferson Airplane. When the group needed a guitarist, Kantner recommended Jorma Kaukonen, whom he knew from his San Jose days.
Kantner would be the only member to appear on all Jefferson Airplane/Starship albums bearing the Jefferson prefix. Kantner's songwriting often featured whimsical or political lyrics with a science-fiction or fantasy theme, usually set to music that had a hard rock, almost martial sound.
Kantner and Jefferson Airplane were among those who played at Woodstock. Forty years later, Kantner recalled: “We were due to be on stage at 10 p.m. on the Saturday night but we didn’t actually get on until 7:30 a.m. the following day.”
Later in the year, the group also played at Altamont, where Marty Balin was knocked unconscious by a Hell's Angel member originally hired as security for the concert.
Despite its commercial success, the Airplane was plagued by intra-group fighting, causing the band to begin splintering at the height of its success. Part of the problem was manager Bill Graham, who wanted the group to do more touring and more recording.
During the transitional period of the early 1970s, as the Airplane started to disintegrate, Kantner recorded Blows Against The Empire, a concept album featuring an ad-hoc group of musicians whom he dubbed Jefferson Starship.
This earliest edition of Jefferson Starship included members of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (David Crosby and Graham Nash) and members of the Grateful Dead (Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart), as well as some of the other members of Jefferson Airplane (Grace Slick, Joey Covington and Jack Casady).
In 1991, Kantner and Balin reformed Jefferson Starship and Kantner continued to tour and record with the band.
Kantner died in San Francisco at the age of 74 in January, 2016 from multiple organ failure and septic shock after he suffered a heart attack days earlier.
Shortly after Kantner's passing, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart reflected, "He was kind of the backbone of that band. It was always about Grace and Jack and Jorma (Kaukonen), I don’t think he got the credit he deserved."
Kanter died on the same day as Airplane co-founder, Signe Toly Anderson.