Jefferson Starship

小簡介
首先，Jeferson Airplane=Jefferson Starship=Starship
"杰斐遜飛機"樂隊是由男歌手馬特·巴林（Marty Balin）于1965年建立起來的搖滾樂隊，共6人。起先他們在俱樂部演奏一些民謠搖滾和披頭士的歌曲，后來與RCA唱片公司簽約，發(fā)行專輯《杰斐遜飛機起飛》（Jefferson Airplane Takes Off ，1966）但銷路不佳。
不久，他們采用了迷幻搖滾風格，與吸毒文化相聯系，而且由于吸收了一位女歌手格瑞斯·斯利克（Grace Slick，1939年出生），情況才發(fā)生了變化。1967年，他們的第二張專輯《超現實主義枕頭》（Surrealistic Pillow）取得了巨大的成績。因此，"杰斐遜飛機"被稱為嬉皮士時代"舊金山聲音"最主要的代表，成了美國最負盛名的搖滾團體之一。"杰斐遜飛機"隨后發(fā)行的迷幻搖滾專輯，如《萬物之冠》（Crown Of Creation，1968）、《志愿者》（Volunteers，1969）、《吠叫》（Bark，1971）等，也都很受歡迎。雖然其中沒有一首單曲進入"最佳十首"，但對舊金山很多樂隊來說，這是很尋常的。他們不在乎排行榜，甚至有的還把"上榜"看作是一件不光彩的事情。
70年代初，"杰斐遜飛機"的人員又有變動，其骨干除斯利克外，還有保羅·坎特納（Paul Kantner ）。他們改名為"杰斐遜（星際）飛船"（Jefferson Starship）。1975年巴林（"杰斐遜飛機"的創(chuàng)立人，后離隊）回到樂隊。過了三年，巴林和斯利克都退出"杰斐遜飛船"（斯利克于1982年重新加入），樂隊風格轉向硬搖滾。最初的老隊員中只剩下坎特納一人。最后，連坎特納也離開了，盡管如此，"飛船"于80年代后期仍不時地取得成功。
成立時間：1965年于美國舊金山
    解散時間：1973年
    風格劃分：民謠搖滾、迷幻搖滾、硬搖滾、Rock & Roll
    樂隊簡介：Jefferson Airplane是舊金山最早為全美國熟知的迷幻搖滾樂隊，他們代表了一個時代。
    樂隊由創(chuàng)作歌手Marty Balin成立于1965年夏，1966年樂隊在RCA旗下發(fā)行《Takes Off》，在商業(yè)上小有收獲。1967年2月，樂隊參加了金門公園的海特阿伯萊音樂會，引起轟動，被傳媒當成一個神圣文化潮流的領袖。樂隊得到了唱片公司的重視，得以錄制下一張專輯《Surrealistic Pillow》。這時的樂隊陣容是：歌手Marty Balin、吉他手/歌手Paul Kantner、吉他手/歌手Jorma Kaukonen、鼓手Spencer Dryden、貝司手Jack Casady、女歌手Grace Slick。《Surrealistic Pillow》是樂隊推出的最重要的一張唱片，它為舊金山樂派開辟了第一片天空，“舊金山迷幻搖滾出師表”之稱毫不過份。它充分開發(fā)了樂器演奏的無限可能性，并以此激發(fā)了超出日常經驗的想象力。金唱片銷量和長久傳唱的名曲“Somebody to Love”、“White Rabbit”只是這張唱片表面上的成功，實際上在此之下是1967年“愛的夏天”、為迷幻搖滾瘋狂的美國、迅速蔓延的嬉皮生活方式、數目猛漲的癮君子。
   1967年的《After Bathing at Baxter》同樣是一張優(yōu)秀的唱片，雖然商業(yè)成績稍差但更具實驗性和藝術感。之后樂隊高歌猛進，1968年的《Crown of Creation》是樂隊的另一張金唱片，它代表了樂隊最優(yōu)美和諧的一面。1969年的金唱片《Volunteers》則是樂隊搖滾風格的集中體現，并在當時被許多政治理想的破滅者引用。
    此時Dryden因與Balin發(fā)生爭執(zhí)而離開樂隊，小提琴手Papa John Creach1970年秋加入，而Balin在1971初又離開了樂隊，樂隊走向分裂。
    在其后的時間中，樂隊經歷了極為頻繁的人員變動，只有Kantner一人始終留在樂隊中。樂隊在七十年代末開始向硬搖滾方向演化，并更名為Jefferson Starship，最后稱為Starship。1989年，原Jefferson Airplane成員Balin、Kantner、Kaukonen、Casady和Slick重組，并錄制了《Jefferson Airplane》，雖然專輯已失去往日吸引力，但巡演卻比較成功。1995年，Kantner、Balin、Casady組成了新的Jefferson Starship，并發(fā)行了《Deep Space/Virgin Sky》。
by William Ruhlmann
Jefferson Starship was among the most successful arena rock bands of the 1970s and early 80s, an even greater commercial entity than its predecessor, Jefferson Airplane, the band out of which it evolved. Many Jefferson Airplane fans decried the groups new, more mainstream musical direction, especially after Airplane singers Grace Slick and Marty Balin departed in 1978. But with shifting personnel, Jefferson Starship managed to please its new fans and some old ones over a period of a decade before it shifted gears into even more overtly pop territory and changed names again to become simply Starship.
Jefferson Airplane, the seminal San Francisco psychedelic rock band of the 1960s, noted for its hits Somebody to Love and White Rabbit, began to fragment in the early 70s. Lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady increasingly were preoccupied with their spin-off group Hot Tuna, while the bands other creative axis, rhythm guitarist/singer Paul Kantner (born Paul Lorin Kantner in San Francisco, CA, March 17, 1941) and singer Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing in or near Chicago, IL, October 30, 1939), having become a romantic couple, had their own musical and political interests, and singer Marty Balin (born Martyn Jerel Buchwald in Cincinnati, OH, January 30, 1942), the odd man out, had become sufficiently disenchanted with the band he himself had formed that he quit Jefferson Airplane at the end of a tour over the Thanksgiving weekend in 1970. The following week saw the release of Blows Against the Empire, Kantners debut solo album, which he had recorded with a long list of musician friends from Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, among others. To pay tribute to this loose-knit studio ensemble and refer to the albums science fiction theme, Kantner co-billed the album to Jefferson Starship, even though there was, as yet, no such permanent entity. Nevertheless, the album featured performers who would be members of Jefferson Starship when it was established as a real band, in particular Kantner, Slick, and Quicksilver Messenger Service member David Freiberg (born in Boston, MA, August 24, 1938).
A year later, in late 1971, Kantner and Slick released a duo album, Sunfighter. One track, Earth Mother, was a song written by Jack Traylor, a high-school English teacher and friend of Kantners, and on lead guitar was teenager Craig Chaquico (born September 26, 1954), a student of Traylors and a member of his band, Steelwind. Jefferson Airplane gave what turned out to be its final performance in September 1972, by which time Freiberg had joined the group. The next album out of the Jefferson Airplane troupe was Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun, credited to Kantner, Slick, and Freiberg, and released in the spring of 1973, an album that featured the other members of Jefferson Airplane in subsidiary roles, and on which Chaquico also appeared. Many of the same musicians appeared on Grace Slicks debut solo album, Manhole, released in early 1974.
When it became apparent that Kaukonen and Casady were not interested in reconvening Jefferson Airplane, Kantner decided to form a permanent touring band without them. The name Jefferson Airplane was co-owned by Casady, Kantner, Kaukonen, Slick, and the bands manager, Bill Thompson. So, Kantner determined to call the revised unit Jefferson Starship. The new band began with the remaining elements of the old one: Kantner on rhythm guitar and vocals; Slick on vocals; Freiberg on vocals and keyboards; Papa John Creach (born John Henry Creach in Beaver Falls, PA, May 18, 1917; died February 22, 1994) on electric violin; and John Barbata (born in Passaic, NJ, April 1, 1945) on drums. Chaquico, still a teenager, but at least out of high school, was the logical choice for lead guitarist. Jorma Kaukonens brother Peter (who had appeared on Blows Against the Empire, Sunfighter, and Manhole) was brought in on bass. The band began rehearsals in January 1974 and opened its first tour in Chicago on March 19. The tour ran through April, after which the band prepared to go into the studio. Peter Kaukonen did not work out, however, and he was replaced in June by British veteran Pete Sears (born May 27, 1948), who had worked on Manhole.
During the recording sessions in July, Kantner reunited with Marty Balin to write the power ballad Caroline, which Balin agreed to sing on the album. Kantner and Slick hedged their bets by putting their names on either side of the name Jefferson Starship on the cover of the album, Dragon Fly, when it was released in October 1974. They neednt have worried. Even though the single Ride the Tiger petered out at number 84, Dragon Fly just missed the Top Ten and went gold within six months, selling as well as Jefferson Airplane albums generally did. Balin joined the band on-stage at its performance at the Winterland ballroom in San Francisco on November 24 (four years after his final Jefferson Airplane appearance) and then agreed to join Jefferson Starship as a permanent member.
With Balin aboard, the eight-member Jefferson Starship went back into the studio in February 1975 to record its second album and came out in June with Red Octopus, which turned out to be the best-selling album of the entire Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship career, largely due to the presence of Balins ballad Miracles, which became a Top Ten hit. (Slick and Sears Play on Love was also a singles chart entry.) The album first hit number one (which no Jefferson Airplane album had ever done) in September, and bounced in and out of the top spot for the next two months. Eventually, it sold over two million copies. (At this point, Creach quietly exited the band.)
Red Octopus set a pattern for the next two Jefferson Starship albums. Balin, whose love songs had dominated the early days of Jefferson Airplane, but who had been shunted aside by the more political and abstract interests of other bandmembers, returned to a major role thanks to the commercial success of Miracles. Unlike Jefferson Airplane, which valued the individual expression of its members, however bizarre, Jefferson Starship was interested in making commercial music, even if it was written by people outside the band. Spitfire, released in June 1976, was another million-seller, boasting the Balin-sung Top 20 hit With Your Love. Earth, released in February 1978, also went platinum, spurred by the Top Ten hit Count On Me and its Top 20 follow-up, Runaway.
The commercial success masked increasing personnel problems, however, and those problems came out during the bands European tour in June 1978, when Slick, suffering from some combination of illness and substance abuse problems, missed shows and gave substandard performances. She left the tour early, and at its conclusion Balin also quit the band. After the remaining members returned home to regroup, Barbata was involved in a serious automobile accident that forced him to drop out. This left remaining members Kantner, Freiberg, Chaquico, and Sears to figure out what to do next. In January 1979, they brought in veteran rock drummer Aynsley Dunbar (born in Liverpool, England, January 10, 1946) to replace Barbata. In April, Mickey Thomas (born in Cairo, GA, December 3, 1949), who possessed the soaring tenor voice behind the Elvin Bishop Groups 1976 hit Fooled Around and Fell in Love, was drafted in to replace both Slick and Balin. This revamped sextet went into the studio in June 1979, and in October the pointedly titled fifth Jefferson Starship album, Freedom at Point Zero, was released. Critics carped that, with Balin and Slick gone, and Thomas installed, the bands sound was indistinguishable from that of arena rock stalwarts like Boston, Foreigner, and Journey. But, of course, those bands were selling in the millions, whatever the critics thought, and Chaquico even took the comparisons as a compliment. The album spawned a Top 20 hit in Jane and, while it did not match the success of its predecessors, it reached the Top Ten and went gold, validating the new version of the band, at least in commercial terms.
Kantner addressed the criticisms on the next Jefferson Starship album, Modern Times, released in the spring of 1981 in a song called Stairway to Cleveland (We Do What We Want). The album, a gold-selling Top 40 hit featuring a Top 40 single in Find Your Way Back, was also notable for background vocals by Grace Slick (and a duet with Thomas on Stranger). Slick, having overcome her personal problems, had launched a full-fledged solo career, issuing albums in 1980 and early 1981. But when Jefferson Starship toured in the summer, she went along, and soon was back as a full-fledged bandmember.
In September 1982, Aynsley Dunbar left Jefferson Starship and was replaced by Donny Baldwin, another former member of the Elvin Bishop Group. The bands next album, Winds of Change, was released the following month. It sported two Top 40 hits, Be My Lady and the title song, and it eventually reached gold-record status. Nuclear Furniture, released in May 1984, enjoyed comparable success, spawning the Top 40 hit No Way Out. By this point, however, Kantner was no longer willing to defend the bands arena rock tendencies. Feeling that he had lost control of the group, he determined to leave it, playing his last show on June 23 before quitting. He also felt, however, that the band should dissolve without him, and when the other members disagreed, he sued over money and the rights to the name Jefferson Starship in October 1984.
Kantners suit was settled in March 1985 with a cash payment and the compromise that Jefferson Starship, a name to be owned 51 percent by Slick and 49 percent by manager Bill Thompson, would be retired in favor of Starship, the name by which the band would continue to work. Starship went on to considerable commercial success in the second half of the 1980s before splitting up in the early 90s. Kantner went on to form the K.B.C. Band, featuring Marty Balin and Jack Casady, which made one self-titled album in 1986, and then to participate in a one-off reunion of Jefferson Airplane in 1989. In 1992, he organized a new band with which he toured under the name Jefferson Starship. (He sometimes billed it as Jefferson Starship — The Next Generation.) He did not have the legal right to do this, but neither Slick nor Thompson took action to stop him. In fact, Slick, though she had declared herself retired after the Jefferson Airplane reunion, made occasional appearances with Kantners band. Marty Balin, Jack Casady, Papa John Creach, and even original Jefferson Airplane female singer Signe Anderson also performed in it at various times. As of the 1995 live album Deep Space/Virgin Sky, the bands lineup was Kantner, Balin, and Casady, plus Darby Gould (formerly of World Entertainment War) on vocals, lead guitarist Slick Aguilar and keyboardist Tim Gorman (both of the K.B.C. Band), and Prairie Prince (from the Tubes) on drums, with Grace Slick as guest vocalist. As of 1999s new studio album Windows of Heaven, vocalist Diana Mangano and keyboardist T. Lavitz of the Dixie Dregs had joined. The two-CD live album Across the Sea of Suns, issued in 2001, featured Kantner, Balin, Mangano, Aguilar, Prince, and keyboardist Chris Smith. Kantners Jefferson Starship also sells CDs of its concerts on its official website, www.jeffersonstarshipsf.com.