A band from the ballrooms
Jefferson Airplane formed in San Francisco in 1965, around the singer and songwriter Marty Balin, who helped open a club called the Matrix where the group played. Its early lineup also included the guitarist and singer Paul Kantner, the lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and, soon afterwards, the bassist Jack Casady. They became one of the first bands from the city’s emerging rock scene to sign with a major label, RCA Victor, and their first album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, appeared in 1966.
That record had a folk-rock sound and modest sales, and the female vocalist at the time, Signe Anderson, left the band after the birth of her child. Her replacement turned out to matter a great deal.
Grace Slick joins
Grace Slick had been singing with another San Francisco group, the Great Society, which had a following locally. She joined Jefferson Airplane in late 1966, and she brought two songs from her earlier band: “Somebody to Love”, written by her brother-in-law Darby Slick, and her own “White Rabbit”. The drummer Spencer Dryden also joined around this time, replacing Skip Spence, who left to form the band Moby Grape.
The change gave the group a stronger, more powerful sound. Slick’s voice contrasted with Balin’s, and Kaukonen’s guitar and Casady’s melodic bass pushed the music toward the harder, more improvised style that San Francisco audiences wanted.
Recording in Hollywood
Surrealistic Pillow was recorded in late 1966 at RCA Victor’s studio in Hollywood, with Rick Jarrard as producer. This was a departure for the band, which had been used to the live ballroom environment. They had more time and a larger budget than before, and they worked on arrangements that were more carefully shaped. Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead helped informally, and the album’s credits list him, jokingly, as “spiritual advisor”. Accounts of how much he contributed musically are mixed, so it is best to treat him as a friendly presence and occasional guitarist in the sessions rather than a major creative figure.
The album was released in February 1967. It mixed folk-influenced songs, such as Balin’s ballads, with sharper rock tracks and the two Slick numbers.
The two hit singles
“Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit” were released as singles in the spring and became the group’s biggest hits. “Somebody to Love” reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100, and “White Rabbit” reached number eight. These are the most widely cited positions, and they are consistent across the main reference works.
“White Rabbit” draws on Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories and is usually read as a song about drug experience and the questioning of authority. Slick has said that its slow-building arrangement was influenced by Spanish-flavoured jazz, with a bolero-like rhythm. It was only about two and a half minutes long, which made it suitable for radio. Some stations were cautious about the lyrics, but the song still received wide airplay, which suggests how quickly the culture was changing.
The album itself reached the top five of the American album chart and is generally counted as the first major commercial success from the San Francisco scene.
The band and the San Francisco scene
The Airplane’s story is bound up with the city. They played at the Fillmore Auditorium, run by Bill Graham, and the Avalon Ballroom, and they were part of the circle that included the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Many of the group lived in the Haight-Ashbury district, and the neighbourhood’s growing reputation as a hub of the hippie movement brought them national attention.
They were also among the first San Francisco bands to be heard far outside California. The publicity around the 1967 Summer of Love, with its images of young people converging on the city, helped draw listeners to their music. The band appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in June, and their popularity there suggested that San Francisco rock had a national market. Their music was often framed by the posters and light shows of the time, and psychedelic rock posters from the Fillmore and Avalon remain closely associated with their era.
Reception and legacy
Critics responded favourably, and the album has generally been treated as a high point of the band’s recorded work. It also demonstrated something about the industry. A major label could sign an underground band, give it a professional studio, and reach a mass audience without losing the character of the music. That model was copied during the next few years, with mixed results.
The group continued to record, with more experimental and more political albums over the next several years, and its lineup shifted many times. But for many listeners Surrealistic Pillow remains the record in which Slick, Balin and Kaukonen are most balanced, and its two singles are still some of the most recognisable songs of the period.