The name Slick is legendary in rock music annals.
Attach it to Grace, and you have the raven-haired, piercing-eyed beauty who sang her way to immortality with Jefferson Airplane's 1967 hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit." Personally, I fell in love with her a few years later when viewing a performance of the latter song on an "American Bandstand" retrospective. I'd never heard such cool sounds coming from someone so good-looking.
But as well-known as she became as Grace Slick, she actually started life (66 years ago as of this coming Sunday) as Grace Wing. The other surname came about in the early '60s, when she married a guy named Jerry Slick, who happened to have a brother named Darby Slick. The three of them started playing music together, very informally, until something happened in the summer of 1965 that prompted them to take their pursuits more seriously.
On Aug. 13 of that year, Grace attended the opening of a San Francisco club called The Matrix, where a band - some of its members were part-owners of the club - was making its public debut. The folk-rock aggregation carried the unlikely name (for that day and age) of Jefferson Airplane, and featured a female singer among its ranks.
At that point, Grace decided she could do the same thing, so the three Slicks got together with a few friends to form the Great Society, named after LBJ's package of programs that supposedly was going to cure America's ills. (It didn't.)
From what I've read, their musical skills were kind of rudimentary, with the exception of Darby's guitar playing. Recordings they made later that fall under the guidance of Sylvester Stewart (before he became Sly Stone) pretty much confirm that assessment. Most of the songs remained unreleased for about three decades, until Sundazed Records issued them as a CD called "Burn to Be Burned," after one of Darby's compositions.
Two songs that did surface in the '60s, making up the two sides of an extremely limited-release single, were called "Free Advice" and "Someone to Love," both also written by Darby. The former features Grace scat-singing sort of a raga in what qualifies as an early attempt to merge Eastern music with rock.
The latter, with a slight title changed and a radically altered arrangement (legend has it that Jerry Garcia was the one who suggested doubling the tempo), still is heard on the radio on a daily basis. While I certainly enjoy Jefferson Airplane's version - after all, it features the extraordinary talents of Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady - I'm kind of partial to the original. It plods along and Grace sings slightly off-key, but Darby comes in with a buzz-saw of a guitar solo that's right there on the edge as far as '65 standards.
Meanwhile, the Great Society had honed its act by 1966, employing a bass player who actually could play his instrument and phasing out a male lead vocalist, to concentrate more fully on Mrs. Slick. At the height of Jefferson Airplane's popularity in the late '60s, Columbia Records issued two LPs of material by the band, recorded live at the Matrix. They're available today on a single CD, "Collector's Item," that shows how far the Great Society had progressed by the spring of '66.
The disc is full of interesting material: an arrangement of the Jaynettes' "Sally Go 'Round the Roses" featuring some very quirky guitar playing over Grace's modal organ notes; a song called "Darkly Smiling" that still shows up on set lists of today's version of Jefferson Starship; another early version of "Somebody to Love"; a recorder duo on a neat reading of Eden Ahbez's "Nature Boy"; and a primordial take of the other future Jefferson Airplane classic, this one penned by Grace.
The Great Society's "White Rabbit" is completely different than the one you hear on the radio. It starts with Darby playing a minor-scale riff that he repeats at strategic intervals throughout a jam that features an Eastern-tinged sax workout by the band's regular bassist, Peter Vandergelder. Finally, after nearly six minutes, the familiar lyrics come in as a chant, rather than the fluid vocal Grace employed later. All in all, it's a fascinating experience, considering what other rock bands were doing in '66, even the ones that were considered to be kind of out there.
Of course, it didn't last. I've read liner notes that say Darby became so interested in Eastern music that he contemplated a move to India. Then there was that offer to Grace from the members of Jefferson Airplane to replace singer Signe Anderson when she left the group to be a fuller-time mom.
Almost exactly a year after the Great Society debuted, Grace sang for the first time with her new band, just prior to her 27th birthday. And the following month, the Airplane went into the studio to record an album that would become a classic of the era, "Surrealistic Pillow." Grace's contributions were two cover versions that went on to immortality in their new hands.
By that time, the Great Society was long gone. But for some of us, it's not forgotten.
Attach it to Grace, and you have the raven-haired, piercing-eyed beauty who sang her way to immortality with Jefferson Airplane's 1967 hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit." Personally, I fell in love with her a few years later when viewing a performance of the latter song on an "American Bandstand" retrospective. I'd never heard such cool sounds coming from someone so good-looking.
But as well-known as she became as Grace Slick, she actually started life (66 years ago as of this coming Sunday) as Grace Wing. The other surname came about in the early '60s, when she married a guy named Jerry Slick, who happened to have a brother named Darby Slick. The three of them started playing music together, very informally, until something happened in the summer of 1965 that prompted them to take their pursuits more seriously.
On Aug. 13 of that year, Grace attended the opening of a San Francisco club called The Matrix, where a band - some of its members were part-owners of the club - was making its public debut. The folk-rock aggregation carried the unlikely name (for that day and age) of Jefferson Airplane, and featured a female singer among its ranks.
At that point, Grace decided she could do the same thing, so the three Slicks got together with a few friends to form the Great Society, named after LBJ's package of programs that supposedly was going to cure America's ills. (It didn't.)
From what I've read, their musical skills were kind of rudimentary, with the exception of Darby's guitar playing. Recordings they made later that fall under the guidance of Sylvester Stewart (before he became Sly Stone) pretty much confirm that assessment. Most of the songs remained unreleased for about three decades, until Sundazed Records issued them as a CD called "Burn to Be Burned," after one of Darby's compositions.
Two songs that did surface in the '60s, making up the two sides of an extremely limited-release single, were called "Free Advice" and "Someone to Love," both also written by Darby. The former features Grace scat-singing sort of a raga in what qualifies as an early attempt to merge Eastern music with rock.
The latter, with a slight title changed and a radically altered arrangement (legend has it that Jerry Garcia was the one who suggested doubling the tempo), still is heard on the radio on a daily basis. While I certainly enjoy Jefferson Airplane's version - after all, it features the extraordinary talents of Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady - I'm kind of partial to the original. It plods along and Grace sings slightly off-key, but Darby comes in with a buzz-saw of a guitar solo that's right there on the edge as far as '65 standards.
Meanwhile, the Great Society had honed its act by 1966, employing a bass player who actually could play his instrument and phasing out a male lead vocalist, to concentrate more fully on Mrs. Slick. At the height of Jefferson Airplane's popularity in the late '60s, Columbia Records issued two LPs of material by the band, recorded live at the Matrix. They're available today on a single CD, "Collector's Item," that shows how far the Great Society had progressed by the spring of '66.
The disc is full of interesting material: an arrangement of the Jaynettes' "Sally Go 'Round the Roses" featuring some very quirky guitar playing over Grace's modal organ notes; a song called "Darkly Smiling" that still shows up on set lists of today's version of Jefferson Starship; another early version of "Somebody to Love"; a recorder duo on a neat reading of Eden Ahbez's "Nature Boy"; and a primordial take of the other future Jefferson Airplane classic, this one penned by Grace.
The Great Society's "White Rabbit" is completely different than the one you hear on the radio. It starts with Darby playing a minor-scale riff that he repeats at strategic intervals throughout a jam that features an Eastern-tinged sax workout by the band's regular bassist, Peter Vandergelder. Finally, after nearly six minutes, the familiar lyrics come in as a chant, rather than the fluid vocal Grace employed later. All in all, it's a fascinating experience, considering what other rock bands were doing in '66, even the ones that were considered to be kind of out there.
Of course, it didn't last. I've read liner notes that say Darby became so interested in Eastern music that he contemplated a move to India. Then there was that offer to Grace from the members of Jefferson Airplane to replace singer Signe Anderson when she left the group to be a fuller-time mom.
Almost exactly a year after the Great Society debuted, Grace sang for the first time with her new band, just prior to her 27th birthday. And the following month, the Airplane went into the studio to record an album that would become a classic of the era, "Surrealistic Pillow." Grace's contributions were two cover versions that went on to immortality in their new hands.
By that time, the Great Society was long gone. But for some of us, it's not forgotten.
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