Jefferson Starship

During the transitional period of the early 1970s, Paul Kantner (founding member of Jefferson Airplane ) recorded Blows Against the Empire, a concept album featuring an ad hoc group of musicians that he dubbed Jefferson Starship marking the first use of that name. This edition of Jefferson Starship (such as it was) included members of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young ( David Crosby and Graham Nash ) and members of Grateful Dead ( Jerry Garcia , Bill Kreutzmann , and Mickey Hart ), as well as some of the remaining members of Jefferson Airplane ( Grace Slick , Marty Balin, Joey Covington , and Jack Casady ). By 1973, after the breakup of Jefferson Airplane , with Kaukonen and Casady now devoting their full attention to Hot Tuna , the musicians on Baron von Tollbooth formed the core of a new lineup that was formally reborn as Jefferson Starship in 1974. Kantner, Slick, and Freiberg were charter members. The line-up also included late-Airplane holdovers drummer John Barbata , Marty Balin,and fiddler [artist Papa John Creach (who also played with Hot Tuna ), along with Pete Sears (who, like Freiberg, played bass and keyboards and twenty-year-old guitarist Craig Chaquico . Eventually, Slick's alcoholism became a problem, which led to two nights of disastrous concerts in Germany in 1978. The first night, fans ransacked the stage when Slick failed to appear. The following night, Slick, in a drunken stupor, shocked the audience by using profanity and sexual references throughout most of her songs She also reminded the audience that their country had lost during World War II, repeatedly asking "Who won the war?", and implied that all residents of Germany were responsible for the wartime atrocities. After the debacle, she left the band. After the 1979 release of Freedom at Point Zero (which spawned the hit single "Jane"), Grace Slick suddenly returned to the band. She joined in time to contribute one song "Stranger", on the group's next album, Modern Times (1981). Mod

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