STORY
There was a before, there was an after. Fifty years ago, the Woodstock wave swept the world. Europe 1 makes you relive, at the time of the festivals of the summer, the history of this revolution, not only by what it brought, but also by those which incarnated it. Today, Jefferson Airplane.
The quintessence of the counter-culture
This is the group without which Woodstock would not have existed. At least, Woodstock as a symbol, more than a festival. In 1969, it's been four years since the Jefferson Airplane group embodies, more than any other, the American counterculture. He is at the origin of the wave hippie and psychedelic part of San Francisco, which still today defines this generation. He who has assumed, and assured, from the beginning, the promotion of hallucinogenic mushrooms, marijuana or LSD, all these so-called "noble" drugs supposed to open the spirit to new experiences, to a new music, a new way of life.
When Jefferson Airplane went on stage, it was 8 am on Sunday, August 17, 1969. The band was hoping to play in the dark, but the previous concerts dragged on. So go for a concert at sunrise, after a necessarily white night. White as the rabbit that will be discussed in White Rabbit, between Ravel's Bolero, Alice in Wonderland and trip under acid.
Grace and the fantastic five
"Feed your head", sings the singer, Grace Slick. "Nourish your brain" ... we understand with what. This beautiful crazy brunette with piercing blue eyes and powerful voice composed this title before even joining the band. She is a model for a living and is part of another San Francisco group called The Great Society. But soon, his talents jump to the eyes and ears of Jefferson Airplane musicians, who are looking for a replacement for the too wise Signe Anderson.
Behind the instruments, there is Marty Balin, the soul of the group, also endowed with a superb voice. Guitarists Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen, bassist Jack Casidy and drummer Spencer Dryden. All are excellent musicians, fans of blues and folk, honed at the scene. These local references already have an album under the arm but this one, unlike its title, "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off", did not take off.
Lift-off
With Grace Slick, the Airplane becomes a jet plane. The first album, Surrealistic Pillow, released in 1967, is a first box: No. 5 in the United States. As for the two songs that the new star brings back in his wallet, it's a triumph. In addition to White Rabbit, we find Somebody to Love, written and offered by his brother-in-law.
This is one of the most direct pieces of Jefferson Airplane. Most of them are indeed much more sinuous and unstructured. We often know how it starts, but rarely where and how it ends, depending on the inspiration of each musician and the state of general levitation.
Six months after Surrealistic Pillow, a new album, After Bathing At Baxters, meets a new success, even if the music becomes even more opaque and the innuendo to hallucinogens more and more obvious. Hippies love, the general public a little less. The group becomes the spokesman, willingly provocative, of this generation libertarian and antimilitarist. The highlight will be embedded with the third album, Crown Of Creation, which comes out in the wake.
From LSD to the White House
At the end of 1968, Jean-Luc Godard, then in full Mao period, realizes a documentary on this America which creaks of all parts. He is eager for the group to appear. And so, two months before the Beatles had the idea of bidding farewell to the rooftop stage of their record label, Jefferson Airplane is investing in a hotel near Times Square in New York. York. It is 7:30 am in this cold Tuesday, November 19 when the guitars wake up the whole neighborhood. The concert will only last a few minutes before the police intervene, but the historic performance is in the box. And she is excellent, given the context. The documentary, however, supposedly called One AM, "one american movie", will come out in a truncated form, Godard having judged the local cameramen too mediocre.
The provocation continues when Grace Slick, invited by the daughter of Richard Nixon to a reception of former students of the same establishment, tries to introduce LSD to the White House. His goal: to pour it into the tea of the conservative president, hated opponents of the war in Vietnam. Under her maiden name, Wing, she goes unnoticed despite a heavy FBI record. But his chaperone of the day, who is none other than a well-known anarchist activist, is quickly spotted. Both are exfiltrated even before entering the presidential palace.
Greatness and decadence
In the meantime, Jefferson Airplane's latest album under his "classic" training has come out. It's called Volunteers, an ironic tribute to a kind of American Salvation Army that cleans the streets in the morning. Prestigious friends like Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead, another fuel group with hallucinogens, and David Crosby, come to lend a hand. The message is political, of course, but also ecological. A kind of swan song.
After Woodstock, the era becomes harder, the disillusions more bitter. At the end of 1969, the band played at the Altamont festival in a hateful atmosphere. Hells Angels supposed to ensure the security of the event (an idea of the Rolling Stones) beat Marty Balin in full concert, then stab to death a young black suspected of preparing an assault. Marty Balin leaves Jefferson Airplane in the early 1970s and nothing will be the same.
Records without great relief will continue to emerge, projects solo or duet will see the day, but musically, nothing will arrive at the height of the beginnings. Ice Slick and Paul Kantner will have a baby girl named China. Jefferson Airplane will become Jefferson Starship then Starship after a trial on the use of the term "Jefferson", and will sign in 1985 under this name a tube that has aged badly. We Built This City is frequently listed as one of the worst songs of all time. An epilogue unworthy of the importance and influence of one of the most iconic groups of the 1960s.
Find all the other episodes of our series "Woodstock, 50 years later":
> Episode 1: The origins of the most iconic festivals
> Episode 2: Richie Havens, the story of a fate that topples
> Episode 3: Tim Hardin, dubbed by Bob Dylan, destroyed by drugs
> Episode 4: Joan Baez, the consciousness of a generation
> Episode 5: Santana, and the legend was created
> Episode 6: Canned Heat, as long as the blues live
> Episode 7: Creedence Clearwater Revival, the essential casting error
> Episode 8: Janis Joplin, the pearl of the sixties
> Episode 9: Sly and the Family Stone, downtown funk
> Episode 10: The Who, the rebirth in Woodstock