CoronaVinyl Day 201 (J): The Worst of Jefferson Airplane by Jefferson Airplane

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As we enter our third century of CoronaVinyl, we're sticking with the '60s for the third day in a row.  Today's CoronaVinyl category is "J," and I'm listening to Jefferson Airplane's 1970 greatest hits compilation, the sardonically titled The Worst of Jefferson Airplane.

Jefferson Airplane was one of the premier San Francisco rock groups of the late '60s, helping to pioneer psychedelic rock and becoming the first Bay Area rock group of that era to achieve wide success.  For the band's first album, Signe Toly Anderson was the female vocalist and Skip Spence was the drummer, joining Marty Balin on vocals/rhythm guitar, Jack Casady on bass, Paul Kantner on rhythm guitar/vocals, and Jorma Kaukonen on lead guitar.  Spence and Anderson left the band in 1966, and were respectively replaced by Spencer Dryden and Grace Slick.  With Dryden and Slick, the band's "classic" lineup was formed.  The band went on to considerable success and influence over the remaining years of the decade, and they have the distinction of being the only band that performed at all three of the iconic rock festivals of the 1960s:  June 1967's Monterey Pop Festival, August 1969's Woodstock, and December 1969's Altamont Free Concert (which was a disaster and, for all intents and purposes, was the death knell of the peace and love vibe of the '60s).

The Worst of Jefferson Airplane features songs from the band's first five studio albums, released between 1966 and 1969, as well as one track from their 1969 live album Bless Its Pointed Little Head.  The Worst went to #12 on the Billboard album chart and eventually went platinum in the U.S.  It features their most well-known songs and biggest hits, including "Somebody to Love" (#5 on the Billboard Hot 100), "White Rabbit" (#5), "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil" (#42), and "Volunteers" (#65).

As is typical, the band struggled with internal fighting, side projects, pregnancy, and drugs, and the classic lineup began to splinter in the late '60s and early '70s.  The band played its last show as Jefferson Airplane in late 1972, and then in 1974, Jefferson Airplane morphed into Jefferson Starship, and then in the early '80s, after more original members left and there were lawsuits and such, Jefferson Starship morphed into Starship and reminded us that San Francisco is not built on rock and soil, but rather on rock and roll.  Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "White Rabbit"

This is my favorite Jefferson Airplane song.  It's just so creepily good.  Though "White Rabbit" is in theory a song about Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, it rightfully became an anthem for the psychedelic era, with its references to Alice taking pills, a hookah-smoking caterpillar, mushrooms, and, of course, the iconic final line belted out by Grace Slick:  "Feed your head! Feed your heeeaaaadddd!"

Favorite song from Side 2:  "We Can Be Together"
At first blush, given its 1969 release date and title, you might think "We Can Be Together" is a hippy love song.  But behind its façade, there's a subversive message.  Inspired by the Black Panther Party's use of the phrase "Up against the wall, motherfucker," Kantner included that in the chorus, which was, of course, controversial at that time because, you know, swearing!  "Motherfucker" was actually somewhat muted on the original LP so that you couldn't hear it very well, but the 45 version was full audio.  Even so, it's with the harmonies, it's probably the most pleasant "motherfucker" ever sung in a song.