Guitarist Paul Kantner and Co-Founder of Jefferson Airplane Dies at Age 74

ANOTHER MUSIC LEGEND HAS PASSED AWAY …

Paul Kantner, one of the giants of the San Francisco music scene and one of the founding members of the Jefferson Airplanes has passed away at the age of 74. According to accounts, Kantner suffered a heart attack earlier this week; however the cause of death was multiple organ failure brought on by septic shock.  The Jefferson Airplanes were one of the pioneering bands of the counterculture era psychedelic rock The Airplanes played at three most famous American rock festivals of the 1960s; Monterey [VIDEO] (1967), Woodstock [VIDEO] (1969) and Altamont [VIDEO] (1969).  What a different era to be alive. The  Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

On a person note, I remember being turned on to the Jefferson Airplanes as a pre-teen by my older sister, a true flower child. And yes, she actually sis attend Woodstock. Of course I am not sure my parents were too happy, LOL. I was too young to completely understand the counter-culture movement, nor all the music was about drugs, I just loved the music. You will be missed Paul, Rest in Peace.

Paul Kantner, a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, one of the definitive San Francisco psychedelic groups of the 1960s, and the guiding spirit of its successor, Jefferson Starship, died. He was 74.

The cause was multiple organ failure brought on by septic shock, his publicist, Cynthia Bowman, said.

Mr. Kantner died just weeks after it was announced that Jefferson Airplane would receive a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award next month.

Jefferson Airplane -White Rabbit

Mr. Kantner, who started as a folk singer, had a mellow baritone voice that blended ideally with the penetrating tenor of the group’s founder, Marty Balin, and the powerful mezzo of Grace Slick, who joined the band after its first album. He played a steady rhythm guitar that anchored the freak-out style of the group’s lead guitarist, Jorma Kaukonen, and the adventurous bass lines of Jack Casady.

“Paul was the catalyst that brought the whole thing together,” Mr. Kaukonen said in an interview on Thursday. “He had the transcendental vision and he hung onto it like a bulldog. The band would not have been what it was without him.”

He was a prolific songwriter, teaming with Mr. Balin on some of the group’s best-known songs, including “Today,” “Young Girl Sunday Blues” and “Volunteers.” He wrote most of the songs on the freewheeling “After Bathing at Baxter’s,” the group’s third album and in the opinion of many critics its best, and contributed the title song to the fourth, “Crown of Creation.”

Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner dies at 74.

With Jefferson Airplane, Mr. Kantner pioneered what became known as the San Francisco sound in the mid-1960s, with such hits as “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit.”

The Airplane was renowned for thrilling vocal gymnastics by singers Marty Balin, Grace Slick and Mr. Kantner, the psychedelic blues-rock sound developed by guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bass player Jack Casady and the LSD-spiked, ’60s-era revolutionary fervor of its lyrics.

The band was formed in 1965 in a Union Street bar called the Drinking Gourd, when Balin met Mr. Kantner and expressed his interest in creating a “folk-rock” band. It didn’t take long for the Airplane to attract a sizable local following, enough so that when fledgling promoter Bill Graham opened his legendary Fillmore Auditorium, the Jefferson Airplane served as the first headliner.