Jefferson Guitarist Reflects on Band Structure 60 Years Ago, Says Grace Slick Changed ‘Everything’ (Exclusive)

BEAR YOUR EAR

• Jorma Kaukonen originally planned to move to Denmark in the 1960s, but joined Jefferson Airplane after being invited by Paul Kantner.

• The group committed to their first album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Offbut it grew higher after release Surrealistic pillow and Grace Slick

• Kaukonen notes the album’s long-lasting legacy, calling it a “great work of art” decades later.

Jorma Kaukonen had no idea how big Jefferson Airplane would become when he first joined the band.

The Grammy-winning guitarist, 85, tells PEOPLE he first met one of the original members at school, and they became fast friends.

“Paul Kanter had moved to San Francisco, around the time I was graduating from Santa Clara University, and he met Marty Balin, these two men are the founders of Jefferson Airplane,” he shares. “They started this club and asked me if I wanted to join.”

At that time, Kaukonen was convinced that he was going to move to Denmark, where he would become an American blues singer.

“Rather than worse, I think I got screwed and went to San Francisco and found myself playing in a band that would eventually be called Jefferson Airplane,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame® Inductee shares.

Besides Kaukonen, Kanter and Balin, the original band consisted of vocalist Signe Toly Anderson, bassist Bob Harvey and drummer Jerry Peloquin. However, Jack Casady soon replaced Peloquin with Harvey and Skip Spence.

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When the band met, it was intended to be a house music group called The Matrix.

“I don’t think my dreams got bigger than something like that,” Kaukonen admits. “San Jose was small back then. I was teaching at a music store. I was really having a good life, and I wasn’t really thinking about being a ‘star’ in any capacity.”

Looking back at that time, he admits that he also felt a sense of “youthful independence.”

“When good things happen to you when you’re young, it’s like, ‘I really deserve this.’ It’s not like we worked for years and finally succeeded. The band met in August 1965, and we had a record deal with a major label in our hometown within a year. How many people does that happen to?” Kaukonen says.

A year after the group was formed, in August 1966, they released their first studio album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. Although the album was not a top hit, it established the group in the American rock world.

Then, in 1967, Jefferson Airplane was released Surrealistic pillow, the group’s first album featuring singer Grace Slick and singer Spencer Dryden. The album featured the hit singles “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit.”

For Kaukonen, the album was “an explosion for us on more levels than I can count.”

“When we found Grace [Slick] in the group, everything has really changed. It was a heady thing,” he shares. “I had never played an electric band before. Everything was completely new. I’m learning how to play the electric guitar, what to play with the electric guitar, how to handle sounds, the most important thing, how to play in a band.”

“For me, it was uncharted territory, and it was a quantum leap, really, from. Jefferson Airplane Takes Off to Surrealistic pillow,” Kaukonen says.

The Library of Congress later recognized the album as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

“There were a lot of legacy things that happened with that album that none of us could have imagined or wanted to imagine at the time,” he adds.

One of the things that still amazes Kaukonen is that “this many years later, it’s a decent work of art.”

“I don’t think I would have called it that when I was a kid when we were recording, but for me, it’s a work of art and to get the respect it has is an honor beyond words,” Kaukonen shares.

Kaukonen says the album is “a link that created a lot of ripples that are still ringing for me and my friends.”

“When you’re a young, successful professional, you accept it the way things are. But looking back, it was a rough situation for us,” Kaukonen says.

Even in his 80s, the singer continues to perform and release albums Wabash Avenue in 2025. He will tour this year, with a stop at Michigan’s Historic Ironwood Theater with John Hurlbut.

Read the original article on People