Jefferson Starship

Original Jefferson Starship bandmembers Marty Balin, Jack Casady, and Paul Kantner were back with some songs about the millennium, protests, and life in general on 1999's Windows of Heaven. Guest vocalist Grace Slick, who sings on one track, makes the album almost a full-scale reunion. New bandmates Prairie Prince (the Tubes) and T. Lavitz (Dixie Dregs, Jazz Is Dead) add even more spice to the mix, as the offshoot of one of San Francisco's finest '60s psychedelic bands prepared itself for the 21st century…

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.

Legendary rock band Jefferson Starship (featuring David Freiberg, Donny Baldwin, Cathy Richardson, Chris Smith, and Jude Gold) has announced the release of their new EP, Mother of the Sun, their first collection of new songs in 12 years. Released on Golden Robot Records, Mother of the Sun will hit stores and streaming platforms on August 21. The seven tracks include two songs co-written by original Jefferson Starship/Jefferson Airplane members — one co-written with Grace Slick and another co-written with Marty Balin. The collection also features the return of original Jefferson Starship member Pete Sears, who plays bass on three tracks.

Ignore who is making this album. Strip it all away and the first song “It’s About Time” would be just about one of the finest that anyone has released this year…