Classic Airplane

Esoteric Recordings is pleased to announce the release of a new re-mastered 2 CD set featuring two classic albums by JEFFERSON AIRPLANE; “Long John Silver” and “Thirty Seconds Over Winterland”. Released on the band’s Grunt Records imprint in 1972 and 1973 respectively, the albums would be the final works by the band in the 1970s.

Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to achieve international commercial success. They were headliners at the Monterey Pop Festival (1967), Woodstock (1969), Altamont Free Concert (1969), and the first Isle of Wight Festival (1968) in England. Their 1967 break-out album Surrealistic Pillow ranks on the short list of the most significant recordings of the Summer of Love. Two songs from that album, "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit", are among Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

The seminal San Francisco psychedelic band in the heyday of such things, Jefferson Airplane were sassy, political, and generally engaging. The band then morphed into Jefferson Starship, which was a whole other thing, a more polished band aiming at the pop charts. Eventually Jefferson Starship became just Starship, although the sound stayed aimed at the charts. This two-disc set combines the best tracks from all of these incarnations, which is a good thing if one is a fan of all of the approaches here, but not such a good thing if, like many, one prefers one version of the band to the other two.

Controversial at the time, delayed because of fights with the record company over lyrical content and the original title (Volunteers of America), Volunteers was a powerful release that neatly closed out and wrapped up the '60s. Here, the Jefferson Airplane presents itself in full revolutionary rhetoric, issuing a call to "tear down the walls" and "get it on together." "We Can Be Together" and "Volunteers" bookend the album, offering musical variations on the same chord progression and lyrical variations on the same theme…

Its smirky title notwithstanding, The Worst of Jefferson Airplane provides a fine recap of the band's first six albums. Released in 1970 shortly before Marty Balin's initial departure from the band, the album marked not only the end of the decade but, unwittingly, the end of the group's most stable phase in terms of membership. The track selections are evenly divided among the first-generation albums; only the live Bless Its Pointed Little Head is represented by a single entry…

Jefferson Airplane had the good fortune (or maybe the ill fortune) of arriving on the pop scene at the end of the 1960s when rock was just beginning to flex its political and artistic side, and being based in hippie-central San Francisco, the band went from being a ragged folk-rock group to being an experimental one, and all the shackles were thrown off in the studio, which is probably why, of all the San Francisco groups of the era, they have perhaps the most uneven catalog. This four-disc, 44-track box set collects the group's key sides, from the early hits "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" to the defiantly rebellious "Volunteers" and the graceful "Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon." When all was said and done, the group's legacy seems pretty much locked into the '60s ethos and doesn't translate all that well into the 21st century, but the hazy nostalgia factor of those times makes this band appear to be more than maybe it actually was. Most of what the Airplane did is here, including six live tracks, so a listen should prove the case one way or the other.

Controversial at the time, delayed because of fights with the record company over lyrical content and the original title (Volunteers of America), Volunteers was a powerful release that neatly closed out and wrapped up the '60s. Here, the Jefferson Airplane presents itself in full revolutionary rhetoric, issuing a call to "tear down the walls" and "get it on together." "We Can Be Together" and "Volunteers" bookend the album, offering musical variations on the same chord progression and lyrical variations on the same theme. Between these politically charged rock anthems, the band offers a mix of words and music that reflect the competing ideals of simplicity and getting "back to the earth," and overthrowing greed and exploitation through political activism, adding a healthy dollop of psychedelic sci-fi for texture.

Jefferson Airplane - At The Family Dog Ballroom (1969) {Charly–Snapper SNAP293CD rel 2007}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 488 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 187 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 11 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1969, 2007 Charly Records / Snapper Music | SNAP 293 CD
Rock / Psychedelic Rock / Folk Rock / Acid Rock

Although the European market has been flooded with unauthorized Jefferson Airplane live recordings that are bootlegs in all but name, there has also been a series of apparently legitimate releases with excellent sound and packaging issued by Charly in the U.K. and previously including At Golden Gate Park and Last Flight. This third release in the series comes chronologically in between its predecessors, having been recorded in September 1969.

Crown of Creation appeared ten months after their last album, After Bathing at Baxter's, and it doesn't take the same kind of leap forward that Baxter's did from Surrealistic Pillow. Indeed, in many ways, Crown of Creation is a more conservative album stylistically, opening with "Lather," a Grace Slick original that was one of the group's very last forays (and certainly their last prominent one) into a folk idiom. Much of what follows is a lot more based in electric rock, as well as steeped in elements of science fiction (specifically author John Wyndham's book The Chrysalids) in several places, but Crown of Creation was still deliberately more accessible musically than its predecessor, even as the playing became more bold and daring within more traditional song structures…