Jefferson Airplane vocalist-guitarist Marty Balin, who co-founded the San Francisco psychedelic rock band in 1965 and played a crucial role in the creation of all their 1960s albums, including Surrealistic Pillow and Volunteers, died Thursday at the age of 76. Hes also written first-person accounts of performing the music of Shostakovich and Prokofiev on clarinet and singing Mozarts Requiem with world-class professionals. Jefferson Airplane co-founder Marty Balin has died. Balin wrote the lyrics for 3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds and performed the lead vocals on the track. According to an extensive band history from Ohio State University, the true meaning of "Jefferson Airplane" is unclear, or at least unsettled. Balin died Thursday at 76, according to a spokesman for the family. Unbeknownst to Kantner, the rest of the band had invited Slick to play a song. DK: In the late 60s, Jefferson Airplane played at two of the biggest rock festivals of all time: Woodstock and Monterey Pop. The man who was born on January 30, 1942, as Martyn Jerel Buchwald officially became Marty Balin in the early 1960s a few years before he formed Jefferson Airplane when he kicked off his career as a professional musician, as noted by Yahoo. Your email address will not be published. Balins pop instincts came to the fore again, and he wrote the new bands 1975 hit Miracles, which reached No. Balins tenor lead vocals can be heard on several classic songs, such as Miracles, Count On Me, With Your Love, Runaway, Volunteers, and his solo hits Hearts and Atlanta Lady (Something About Your Love). Notably, Balin wrote or co-wrote the hits Miracles, With Your Love and Volunteers, and he wrote or co-wrote five songs on Jefferson Airplanes acclaimed album, Surrealistic Pillow. So we got together with Jorma a couple timeshe was our primo guitar player and a great one. Variety is a part of Penske Media Corporation. We want to hear it. The Angels were a little surprised. The deeper spiritual meaning of the song may explain why Balin was able to sing it with so much conviction despite some fluffier elements, such as the highly repetitive use of the word "baby." Marty Balin, a founder, lead singer and songwriter of the groundbreaking San Francisco psychedelic band Jefferson Airplane and a key member of that band's 1970s successor, Jefferson Starship, died on Thursday in Tampa, Fla. Did Marty Balin commit suicide? And there was Lydia Pense and she was good and had a blues thing, and was pretty popular. September 28, 2018 / 5:45 PM / CBS Sacramento. He shunned hard drugs and preferred tight pop songs to long jams. It appeared on the 1975 album 'Red Octopus,' and the album version of the track was seven minutes long. We woke him up, and talked him into coming out. The Altamont incident was reflective of the wild state of rock music in late-1960s, and for a time, Balin and his co-horts in the Airplane singer Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady were considered key players. Born Martyn Jerel Buchwald, Balin was a struggling folk guitarist on the San Francisco scene when he formed a band with Paul Kantner after meeting the 12-string guitarist at a hootenanny. Our main thing was that we wanted to be original. He later sued for medical malpractice, claiming negligence caused him a myriad of injuries, including a paralyzed vocal cord, bedsores, kidney damage, and the loss of his left thumb and half his tongue. He was very good at it.. For example, there's the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and of course, Jefferson Airplane. Id tell the guysthis is what I want to sing. 13 on Billboards national album sales chart, helped along by the success of the title track, another Balin song. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Even though Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady" was the first US #1 with the word "disco" in its title, it wasn't a disco tune. 3 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 As far as the latter is concerned, there's never been anyone in the band named Jefferson, and they've never recorded songs about aviation, so the reasons for the musicians picking that name must be symbolic or evocative. Ive even done songs of mine on my own and people come up to me and say, Im surprised you do that song. Grace (Slick) also had her own kind of thing and she was popular. Balin proved to be a musical journeyman, stylistically. 2023 Variety Media, LLC. A "Jefferson Airplane" is a '60s slang term for a "roach clip" a makeshift device used to hold a joint so that the smoker doesn't burn their fingers. The 100 Best Albums of 2022, A little over a year later, Balin quit the group. Balin: Volunteers was a kick. As for the baby's real first name,as Snopes reports, it's China. White Rabbit was widely considered an anthem to LSD, and caused many pop radio programmers to steer clear of subsequent Airplane singles. I was part of it to be sure, but I was not a primemover. The cause of death . Miracles from Jefferson Starships 1975 album Red Octopus. There was Janis Joplin, but she had a blues thing and was already pretty famous. Marty Balin: Well, I had been in folk groups before that, and I wanted go electric, so I looked for an electric guitarist and a drummer especially. It was such an ugly incident (and a public relations nightmare) that Paul Kantner asked Slick for her resignation. He agreed to fly out. "[14], The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, published in 2004, stated that "with Marty Balin's 'Miracles,' Octopuss massive hit, the band began shifting toward schmaltz. Balin left Jefferson Starship in 1978 and re-started his long dormant solo career, scoring a top 10 hit in 1981 with the lite-FM staple "Hearts," a song so chill it makes "Miracles" sound like "White Rabbit." Balin: Ive just finished an album of my new songs, which I wrote with a guitar player. Text . As a member of Jefferson Starship, Balin released 11 studio albums and 22 singles. Short, sweet, punchy and terribly au courant for these times of political tribulation, Balins loudest, proudest and shoutiest moment of the anti-Vietnam movement find him possessed of the angriest croon you can imagine. Balin: You know, I would tell the bass player, [and we would work out] a bass line, and Id get the drummer to kick in. In this talk from the '80s, the Kansas frontman talks turning to God and writing "Dust In The Wind.". DK: Miracles became a great hit for the band. And people I would work with, they would yell at you and it got intense. Marty Balin was a singer, songwriter, and musician. He was just singing about disco. What happened to Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane? However, the medic cleared Slick to perform that night, but she opted not to, and the band canceled its show in Wiesbaden, West Germany. They developed a strong following around the budding San Francisco rock scene, but became nationwide superstars in 1967 when Anderson left the group and was replaced by Grace Slick. Balin admitted that he wrote this song while he was under the influence of marijuana. The legendary San Francisco psychedelic rock band was known for. In this talk from the '80s, the Kansas frontman talks turning to God and writing "Dust In The Wind.". Hall of Famer and co-vocalist of San Francisco psychedelic rock band also founded Jefferson Starship. Miracles. Balin has died at age 76. We didnt play a blueswe didnt try to do anything that wasnt our own music. It is a catchy rock sound that has a pounding beat. Word of the incident prompted the Grateful Dead, which also had been scheduled to play, to pack up and leave, and the concert further devolved and eventually left four concert-goers dead. DK: While you were with Jefferson Starship, you sang on two other hits, Count On Me and Runaway, that were written by other songwriters. "It was partially our fault," Slick told Rolling Stone. Aaron Mills from Cameo played that. For me, being backstage or on the side, or maybe sitting in the second row right in front, it was cool. However, she wasn't interested, so Slick got the job. The plot involved hippies who steal a government spaceship and fly off to start a utopian society on another planet. No matter what the group called itself or what kind of music it performed, it was always stacked with rock legends like Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, and Marty Balin. Far from the madness of the Airplane, and into the MOR AOR (middle-of-the-road album oriented rock) mainstream, Balins swerving voice on this slick, swaying ballad is coy, cloying and seductive a flickering candle on a sticky, breezy Bay Area night. We hadn't even talked for a year, and we were battling legally," Slick told The New York Times. As she held the newborn in the aftermath and afterglow, a nurse came into Slick's hospital room, "holding a framed certificate that looked like a high school diploma." Balin is also known as being the founder, songwriter, and lead singer of Jefferson Starship, another rock band formed in San Francisco in 1974 by musicians including the former members of Jefferson Airplane. In addition, he enjoys belting out Wooly Bully in dive bars with his band, the Rounders. Sly and the Family Stone may have burned out far too soon, but while they were around, they were the funkiest, coolest band on the scene. In this song, Marty Balin sounds like he is crazy for a lady and thinks their love is a miracle. saving. While Spencer Drydeneventually secured the role of drummer for the band's late '60s glory days, he wasn't the first. DK: After you left Jefferson Starship, youve recorded many solo albums. A longer and rockier version of the song also appears on the 1969 live album Bless Its Little Head. The longer version of the song was recorded when the band played live at Woodstock. I loved his changes, so I just played them on guitar and came up with that melody and the words and had another song. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. [4] However, author Robert Yehling has written that Balin wrote the song in 30 minutes[5] or wrote the lyrics in 45 minutes. The classic film Gimme Shelter, centered on the ill-fated Altamont concert from 1969, showed Mr. Balin getting knocked out on stage by the Hells Angels. One of them said, Marty, what are you doing down here? Some of the suggestive lyrics were also removed, an action uncharacteristic of Jefferson Airplane. According to the Los Angeles Times, he started his musical career in the early 1960s folk craze, recording a couple of forgettable genre singles ("Nobody But You," "I Specialize in Love") before teaming up with a quartet called the Town Criers. Balin also enjoyed painting through most of his life, and painted portraits of many rock and pop music contemporaries, many of whom he considered friends. And the band didn't escape Altamont unscathed, either. Before wild Grace Slick brought her white rabbits and wanton sprit to the Airplane, the bands first album was mostly a solidly folksy, nascent San Fran affair made darker and starker by Balins worrisome woes on Blues from an Airplane (co-written by Balin and Skip Spence of Moby Grape fame) and Its No Secret. Here, his love of Otis Redding, a genuine feel for soul vocalizing and a desire to portray wisdom beyond his age (As I get older the years they get heavy for you / Oh is it any wonder why I feel that my whole life is through) made Balins initial contributions to the Airplane catalog stand out. It was emblematic of the turbulent path San Franciscos Jefferson Airplane navigated in the 1960s and 70s that when the group showed up to play a 1969 festival that was supposed to be the West Coast version of Woodstock, founding member Marty Balin got knocked out cold. In our opinion, "Miracles" was easily the band's best song they ever released under the Jefferson Starship name. Balin left Jefferson Starship in 1978 and re-started his long dormant solo career, scoring a top 10 hit in 1981 with the lite-FM staple "Hearts," a song so chill it makes "Miracles" sound like "White Rabbit." We are pleased to do this new Q&A interview with Marty Balin. However, one of the best tracks on the album was Young Girl Sunday Blues, which was co-written by Marty Balin and Kantner. (Spence would leave after the first album and was replaced by Spencer Dryden). Marty Balin, a patron of the 1960s "San Francisco Sound" both as founder and lead singer of Jefferson Airplane and co-owner of the club where the Airplane and other bands performed, died Sept.. That's pretty weird, man.' (via Ultimate Classic Rock) "The band became more mundane and not quite as challenging and not quite as much of a thing to be proud of.". The man who was born on January 30, 1942, as Martyn Jerel Buchwald officially became Marty Balin in the early 1960s . Balin has several signature psychedelic moments on the bands breakthrough album, such as She Has Funny Cars (penned with Jorma Kaukonen), and the now-corny but still sensuous Plastic Fantastic Lover, with its neon mouth with a bleeding talk smile and a super-sealed lady with chrome-color clothes. But Today, co-written with Paul Kantner, and featuring Jerry Garcia on the aptly surrealistic leads, was supple, cottony lounge psychedelia that would eventually findfavorin the freak folk movementof Devendra Banhart and Espers. Can you talk about your latest albums, Good Memories (2015) and The Greatest Love (2016)? He died on 27 September 2018 in Tampa, Florida, USA. However, it dropped to number 471 when the list was revised in 2020. Mr. Balin himself was known for his yearning tenor on the ballads Today and Its No Secret and on the political anthem Volunteers. In the mid-1970s, when the Airplane regrouped as the more mainstream Jefferson Starship, Mr. Balin sang lead on such hits as Miracles (which he co-wrote), With Your Love and Count on Me. He later had solo success with Hearts and Atlanta Lady., The Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, but Mr. Balin would long have mixed feelings. The Australian band Jet took their name from the 1973 song of the same by Paul McCartney and Wings. Otis Redding followed us, so we wanted to warm up the crowd for him. Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai were two of Graham's co-writers for some '80s rock classics. All Rights reserved. In the 50s, he pioneered soul music, blending R&B with blues, jazz, and gospel to come up with a whole new genre. Only three years later, however, he had soured on touring and Slicks battles with alcohol, and left for a solo career, releasing his first solo album, Balin, from which two singles Hearts and Atlanta Lady were released. This must have been sweet vindication for Balin, who founded Jefferson Airplane but then drifted away from the group as it veered away from his musical vision. it was amazing 5.00 avg rating 1 rating published 2011. Mr. Balin was a brooding, artistic child who dropped out of San Francisco State University to pursue a career in music. I said, Oh, were making so much money. We werent making a penny (laughs). The event was the Altamont Festival, cooked up and headlined by the Rolling Stones. As far as rocks elder statesmen go, Marty Balin (pictured above, at left), who died Sept. 27 at age 76,was one of its rarest birds. While helping to create the freewheeling San Francisco. And Id tell the keyboard player [what I had in mind]. Jack and Jorma were friends, so that made it easier on them. "We had rehearsed all the tunes for, Mjn Seifer from Not Listed For Personal Reason, England, Holly Knight ("The Best," "Love Is A Battlefield"). And wed write lyricswhatever comes to mind, no big dealyou know, not anything deep about them. Balins rep confirmed the musicians death to Rolling Stone, though the cause of death is currently unknown. He was an actor, known for Forrest Gump (1994), The Age of Adaline (2015) and Crank (2006). Balin: Well, my guitar friend Vic Smith, the guy who taught me how to play, gave me those chord changes. 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I thought everybody [was] kind of an asshole, he said earlier this year. Thats what Im doing just flying along., David Wolkowsky, developer who transformed sleepy Key West into a tourist haven, dies at 99, Charles Kuen Kao, Nobel laureate celebrated as father of fiber optics, dies at 84, Mel Elfin, a top editor at Newsweek and U.S. News, dies at 89. And now we had another level to the band, because each guy could stand on his own. But Jack said, Hey, Ill go ask Grace. And he asked her that afternoon, and by that evening, Grace was onstage with us at our concert at the Fillmore. Held four months after Woodstock outside of San Francisco, Altamont failed to replicate that events touted three days of peace and music and turned tragic when a concert-goer was stabbed to death by a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle club, which the Stones had hired to provide security. Fellow Jefferson Airplane founding member Jorma Kaukonen said Friday that Balin had himself to blame at least partly for that, adding that the singer never liked to draw attention to himself. According to Paul Kantner, bandmate Marty Balin got into a scuffle with one of the Hells Angels. "[7], Commenting on the band's recording of "Miracles", Jeff Tamarkin wrote: "[Larry] Cox nailed the production -- there isn't a wasted, out of place note. Volunteers is the title track off the 1969 album of the same name, and it was the only single that Jefferson Airplane released from that album. He has interviewed most of the members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Lyrics written by Marty Balin. Born January 30, 1942 Balin says of the song: "I wrote 'Miracles" about Barbara (his girlfriend at the time), and also about the miraculous powers of Sai Baba. We shared somewonderful times together. Hes a great guitar player. I said, We should have him join our band. And Paul said, Oh no. Jefferson Airplane also was a marquee name two years later at Woodstock, and subsequently at Altamont. The nurse, curious if Slick was serious, asked the rock star to repeat the name. Shortly after that incident, Kantner left the group and took the name with him. He was the leader of the band on that level. But when we were playing, I saw these guys hitting people with pool cues right in front of the stage. It appeared on the 1975 album Red Octopus, and the album version of the track was seven minutes long. "[9], Reviewing a Balin solo concert in 1981, New York Times critic Stephen Holden referred to "Miracles" as Balin's "little masterpiece of pop pillow talk".[10]. While touring Europe with Jefferson Starship, according to Ultimate Classic Rock, Slick fell ill with severe stomach issues. The Rolling Stones. `` of the song also appears on the track seven! Her resignation Bless Its little Head what are you doing down here and co-vocalist of San Francisco psychedelic band! 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