FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow
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I have been listening to Jefferson Airplane…
IN THIS PHOTO: Jefferson Airplane photographed by Herb Greene in San Francisco in 1966 (top row from left: Jack Casady, Grace Slick and Marty Balin; bottom row from left: Jorma Kaukonen, Paul Kantner and Spencer Dryden).
since I was a child, and I never realised that Somebody to Love, and White Rabbit were from the same album! Surrealistic Pillow, the American band’s second album, was released in February 1967 - and I think it is one of the best albums of the late-1960s. The 1966 debut, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, was a good album, but the terrific Surrealistic Pillow was the first to feature Grace Slick on vocals and Spencer Dryden on drums. Slick’s introduction especially reinvigorated the band and her track, White Rabbit, is a true classic! I think the album is packed with wonderful songs. It is no wonder that it reached number-three on the Billboard album chart. The album is not only one of the finest Psychedelic Rock albums of the 1960s, but it is an album that has appeared in many critics’ lists of the best albums ever. It is amazing that Surrealistic Pillow is such a cohesive record considering the personnel changes in 1966. Original drummer Alexander ‘Skip’ Spence had left the band in mid-1966. He was replaced by Spencer Dryden, a Los Angeles Jazz drummer. Grace Slick, formerly a member of the band The Great Society, joined Jefferson Airplane in the autumn of 1966. Slick and Dryden, together with the male lead vocalist, Marty Balin, guitarist-vocalist-songwriter Paul Kantner, lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, and bassist Jack Casady formed the band’s core – and it would remain as such until the early-1970s.
I would encourage people to buy Surrealistic Pillow on vinyl as it is a phenomenal album and one filled with such stunning songwriting! The entire band are incredible, but I especially love the power of Grace Slick’s vocals! In their review, AllMusic said the following about Surrealistic Pillow:
“The second album by Jefferson Airplane, Surrealistic Pillow was a groundbreaking piece of folk-rock-based psychedelia, and it hit like a shot heard round the world; where the later efforts from bands like the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and especially, the Charlatans, were initially not too much more than cult successes, Surrealistic Pillow rode the pop charts for most of 1967, soaring into that rarefied Top Five region occupied by the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and so on, to which few American rock acts apart from the Byrds had been able to lay claim since 1964. And decades later the album still comes off as strong as any of those artists' best work. From the Top Ten singles "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" to the sublime "Embryonic Journey," the sensibilities are fierce, the material manages to be both melodic and complex (and it rocks, too), and the performances, sparked by new member Grace Slick on most of the lead vocals, are inspired, helped along by Jerry Garcia (serving as spiritual and musical advisor and sometimes guitarist). Every song is a perfectly cut diamond, too perfect in the eyes of the bandmembers, who felt that following the direction of producer Rick Jarrard and working within three- and four-minute running times, and delivering carefully sung accompaniments and succinct solos, resulted in a record that didn't represent their real sound.
Regardless, they did wonderful things with the music within that framework, and the only pity is that RCA didn't record for official release any of the group's shows from the same era, when this material made up the bulk of their repertory. That way the live versions, with the band's creativity unrestricted, could be compared and contrasted with the record. The songwriting was spread around between Marty Balin, Slick, Paul Kantner, and Jorma Kaukonen, and Slick and Balin (who never had a prettier song than "Today," which he'd actually written for Tony Bennett) shared the vocals; the whole album was resplendent in a happy balance of all of these creative elements, before excessive experimentation (musical and chemical) began affecting the band's ability to do a straightforward song. The group never made a better album, and few artists from the era ever did”.
I have been playing Surrealistic Pillow quite a bit over the past few days, as I think it is one of those albums that has survived through the decades and could be picked up by anyone now. By that, I mean one does not need to remember the album from the first time or have knowledge of Psychedelic Rock at all. Before finishing off, I want to bring in an article from The Observer from 2017 where they looked back on Surrealistic Pillow fifty years after its release. It is a fascinating album that, as the article notes, has many great moments away from the hits:
“Although the media generally fixated on Slick, listening to the Airplane one had to wonder who actually was the lead singer of the band.
At any moment there could be three—Marty Balin, Grace Slick, Paul Kantner—or four, as Kaukonen would join in from time to time, as well as offering the occasional songwriting gem like “Good Shepherd” (from 1969’s Volunteers). Their voices would swoop and weave, circling, chasing each other, until ultimately coming together like a ragged Wagnerian choir. Meanwhile, Kaukonen’s snaky lead guitar smoldered with blues and stinging tremolo overtones that threatened to obliterate the song altogether.
Beyond the hits, Surrealistic Pillow offered a wide assortment of songs strung together like a bright glittering chunky necklace of love beads. Written by the tragic Skip Spence, the Airplane’s drummer who jumped ship to form the fabled but doomed Moby Grape, “My Best Friend” evoked the Mamas and the Papas’ lilting sound as Slick and Balin’s vocals volleyed playfully back and forth on the song’s coda.
The introspective “Comin’ Back to Me” is a perfect example of ’60s-style mind-melting musical meandering. Following this momentary bout of belly-button gazing, “3/5’s of a Mile in 10 Seconds,” as its title (randomly inspired by a newspaper headline seen by Balin) suggests, smokes like a patch of freshly laid rubber, bursting with the kind of fire and edge that was previously the domain of Brit invasion bands like the Stones, Kinks and the Who.
Play Surrealistic Pillow loud and in its entirety. It unfolds from song to song like a strange flower whose aural perfume continues to intoxicate 50 years on”.
Go and grab the magnificent Surrealistic Pillow on vinyl and play an absolute classic! I love the dreaminess and drama mixing together; the fact that lead vocals are shared although, to me, Grace Slick is the most prominent and memorable performer. It has been a pleasure revisiting such a…
INFLUENCIAL album.