Jefferson Airplane - Did You Know?
March 19, 2018Music facts, music trivia, interesting stories and much more. Introducing the "Did You Know" page about American rock band, Jefferson Airplane.
Enjoy!
Jefferson Airplane, was a rock band that was formed in San Francisco, California in 1965, and was one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. They were also the first band from the Bay Area that achieved international commercial success.
Jefferson Airplane were the headliners at the three most famous American rock festivals of the 1960s: Monterey in 1967, Woodstock in 1969 and Altamont in 1969.
Two of the band's songs, "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love", feature on the list of "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", made by Rolling Stone magazine, and that also takes us to our interesting fact of the day.
The idea for the song "White Rabbit" came to Grace Slick after taking LSD and spending hours listening to the album Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis. She was especially influenced by the first track, "Concierto De Aranjuez". The Spanish beat Slick came up with, was also influenced by Ravel's "Bolero."
Another interesting fact about "White Rabbit", is that the vocals don't come in until 28 seconds into this song. Once you hear the vocals in the song, they don't abate until the song is finished. Pay atterntion, as there is no guitar solo or any break.
This put the entire focus for those two minutes squarely on Grace Slick, who developed very deliberate stage movements which were designed to keep her on her feet, because she was rather clumsy. Any live improvisation came only at the beginning of the song, right before she started to sing.
Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and in 2016, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
The song "Somebody To Love" by Jefferson Airplane was written by Grace Slick's brother-in-law, Darby Slick, in 1965.
The single, however, went nowhere, and when Darby started exploring Indian music in 1966, the group that he and Grace were in broke up, and Grace joined Jefferson Airplane, which was already established.
The song "Somebody To Love" was Jefferson Airplane's first hit song, and with royalties that Darby Slick earned from writing this song, he spent years learning Indian music.
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