Thursday, July 28, 2022

A Two-fer from Harvey Kubernik

Just like Ernie Banks used to say, "Let's play 2."

- HK

And that's exactly what we're gonna do!

First up ...

A vintage interview from Harvey Kubernik with Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane / Starship … and you guys already know how I feel about the music from 1967!!!

Jefferson Airplane / Starship’s Marty Balin on the Heaven That Was ’67

by Harvey Kubernik

The late singer and songwriter Marty Balin, founder of Jefferson Airplane, hitmaker with Jefferson Starship, and well-received solo performer, was at the epicenter of the emerging and nascent San Francisco musical community beginning in 1965. The regional buzz on Jefferson Airplane in 1966 yielded their debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Take Off, issued by RCA Records that year. He continued to make music until his death in 2018, at age 76.

Born Martyn Jerel Buchwald in Cincinnati, Ohio, on January 30, 1942, Balin moved to the Bay Area at age four with his parents Joe and Jean Buchwald. Joe was a lithographer, and printed more than 200 different posters for late ’60s music shows at San Francisco’s Matrix, the Fillmore and Avalon ballrooms. Marty briefly attended San Francisco State University, initially pursuing a career as a painter. He then turned to music and, in 1962, renamed himself Marty Balin, recording the singles “Nobody But You” and “I Specialize in Love” for Challenge Records.

Balin subsequently became the lead singer of a folk music quartet called the Town Criers, followed by a brief stint with the Gateway Singers in 1965. He then mulled over an electric folk sound. “I wanted to play with electric guitars and drums, but when I mentioned that notion in clubs that I played, the owners would say, ‘We wouldn’t have you play here. Not with drums and electricity. This is a folk club.’ So I decided to open my own club.”

Jefferson Airplane in 1966, pre-Grace Slick (l. to r.):

Jorma Kaukonen, Paul Kantner, Jack Casady, Marty Balin,

Signe Anderson, Spencer Dryden

Balin, with the help of financial backers, opened the Matrix on August 13, 1965, featuring his new band Jefferson Airplane. Over the next several years, numerous local bands, as well as visiting acts like the Doors, the Blues Project and the Velvet Underground, would play his venue. “Marty is the one who started the San Francisco scene,” said former Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship manager, and one-time Balin roommate, Bill Thompson., who has since passed away.

“Back in those days, Marty was quite the businessman,” stated Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner, who died two years before Marty. “He was the leader of the band on that level. He was the one who pushed us to do all the business stuff, orchestrating, thinking ahead, looking for managers and club opportunities. He was very good at it.”

Initially a folk-rock outfit, Jefferson Airplane came to epitomize the psychedelic scene that was reflected in their 1967 second album, Surrealistic Pillow. He remained with the band through the albums After Bathing at Baxter’s, Crown of Creation, Bless Its Pointed Little Head and Volunteers, then left in 1971, frustrated by the band’s musical direction.

By 1975, he was ready to rejoin his former bandmates Kantner and Grace Slick in their offshoot band Jefferson Starship, and his voice powered their biggest hits, including “Miracles,” “Count on Me,” “Runaway” and “With Your Love.” Balin left Jefferson Starship in 1978, then, in 1981, he released his first solo album, Balin, which spawned the hit single “Hearts.” In 1989, he joined Jefferson Airplane for a reunion tour and, in 1993, Marty reunited with Kantner in a new lineup of Jefferson Starship.

Marty Balin: I got to see all the beatniks and all the jazz cats in the clubs. I was a friend of Ralph Mathis, Johnny Mathis’ brother. They had a house in San Francisco. Johnny would have Erroll Garner in there, [jazz singer] Nancy Wilson, the Jazz Crusaders, and they’d just perform. Because Ralph was Johnny’s brother, we could get into any club. I saw John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk. Plus, I saw all the great writers and poets. This is before 1967 and the Summer of Love. It started with the beatniks and poets. I don’t know if it’s the geomagnetic forces of the earth and the ocean, but something went on there. It’s a lot different than the rest of the world.

HK: Jefferson Airplane originally had a female singer named Signe Anderson, who was replaced by Grace Slick. How did that change come about?

MB: Grace Slick was real popular at the time with her own band, the Great Society. She had her brother-in-law [Darby Slick] and her husband [Jerry Slick] in that band. We needed to get a new girl, because Signe was pregnant and she didn’t want to tour outside San Francisco. There were only two girls around singing: Janis Joplin in Big Brother and the Holding Company and Grace with the Great Society.

We had this meeting and I said, “Who can we ask?” [Airplane bassist] Jack Casady said, “I’m gonna ask Grace Slick.” I kind of chuckled at that. But Grace used to come to the Matrix and sit out in the audience, right in front of the stage, and watch me. She would stare me down. She would just sit there. Jack asked her that afternoon and that evening she left her band and joined us. Can you believe that? That’s amazing.

HK: Tell me about the first Airplane single, “It’s No Secret.”

MB: I originally wrote it with Otis Redding in mind. I used to hang out with Otis and follow him around like a little puppy dog and watch his shows. I wanted to write him a song that had his kind of groove thing, but Otis never did it. I’ve never seen anybody handle an audience like him and rock the joint. The energy level was amazing with this guy. For me, a highlight of the Monterey International Pop Festival was Otis. He staggered the crowd.

HK: The Airplane had a traveling light show (Glenn McKay’s Head Lights). Was that an essential component in bringing the message and the sound to the audience?

MB: You can see us and the light show in the Monterey Pop movie. The light show was important. There were times we played in a museum and the light show would be the main thing and they would turn the lights out on us on stage so that we would be in shadow so they could just concentrate on the light show. It was getting talked about more than anything else at the time.

HK: The Doors played the Matrix in very early 1967 and then in 1968 you toured the U.S. and Europe together.

MB: We worked and played with them many times. We did some high school and college shows together. I loved the Doors. Oh, my God! I thought Jim Morrison was fantastic. I fortunately became a friend and hung out and got to drink with him. He’d read me his poems all the time. I thought that was funny. I thought Jim was great as an artist. The guy was a good-lookin’ dude, man. I’d go out with him and try and pick up chicks and I was like invisible.

HK: Why does the music of 1967 still resonate so strongly this century?

MB: They are good songs that people grew up with. I’ve had people tell me they were married to one of my songs, their father died the year of one of my songs. Some soccer game in Boston, they use “Volunteers” for their theme. You don’t think about whether a song will last. Every time I do a song, it still moves me and takes me to the place I want to go. It puts me in a trance. That’s the way I write ’em or why bother to play them for people? In Jefferson Airplane, somebody might give me a chord change and make something out of it and write a song to it. How can I sing to this? What kind of melody would I put to it? Over the years, I learned to get out of my way and let the words come. I don’t try to write it. I just try to transcribe what I hear in my head.

HK: Do you have a specific songwriting process?

MB: Sometimes it will be a lyric I write out because I have some words I like. And then I sometimes play the guitar and write to it. Or someone will come to me, “Hey, man. I just came up with these changes,” and I’ll say, “That’s interesting. I wonder if I can sing that?” I listen to the music and the song is telling me things. I let the words come out. “What is it saying?” As simple and as easy as it comes. The more you play something simple and direct like that it gets bigger, enlarges and increases.

HK: I would be remiss if I didn’t ask about your number one hit with Jefferson Starship, “Miracles.”

MB: I was reading these Persian poets who had these poems about making love to a woman but they’re really talking about God. That gave me this idea. And I had been involved with a living avatar, Sathya Sai Baba. They called him the man of miracles. So I started playing and out came this thing about making love to a woman but also about God. I put it all together and played it for the band and they kind of looked at it and went, “I don’t know about that … There’s something wrong with that.” Nobody really liked it. And I thought, gee … I don’t know. Maybe they’re wrong. I liked it, fortunately for them.

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Next up ...

A vintage visit with our old FH Buddy Al Kooper ...

Al has contributed a number of times over the years to Forgotten Hits and at one point paid us one of the highest compliments we've ever received ...

"Thank you for spreading the truth."

We have always striven to present "The Most Accurate Truth" possible after sorting thru all the different versions of stories (and number of ways they've changed over the years) ... so Al's words truly mean a lot.

Take it away, Harvey!!!

Al Kooper to Harvey Kubernik on recording with the Rolling Stones on “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Archival 2018 Interview

In Al's own words ...

I saw the American debut of the Rolling Stones in June of 1964 at Carnegie Hall. It was hard to hear them because of the fuckin’ women going berserk. Different from the Beatles. And I caught them on The Ed Sullivan Show. I later knew Brian Jones from the June, 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival where I was the assistant stage manager.

After I completed The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield & Al Kooper, I went to London and I was picked up at the airport by my good friend Denny Cordell. He then said, "The Stones’ office called me and asked if I felt like playing on a few recording sessions with them. They want you to play on some sessions."

And I said, "How did they know I was gonna be in England?" And Denny replied, "I didn’t say a fuckin’ word. And I don’t even know how they figured out I was involved. But they called me for Tuesday and Wednesday night at Olympic Studios."

The next day we left the hotel and went shopping on Kings Road and ran into Brian Jones in a shirt store who asked, "Are you gonna play the session, Al?" I could never say no to these people. So I went. The main reason they wanted me was that Nicky Hopkins, their regular keyboardist was in the United States.

I went to the studio. Bill and Charlie were there. I met them before with Bob Dylan. I sat at the organ and met Jimmy Miller, the producer. Mick and Keith bolted through the door. Mick wore a gorilla coat and Keith a hat with a long feather. Everyone sat around and they passed out acoustic guitars to anyone who could play acoustic guitar. Then Mick and Keith played acoustic guitar ran down the tune for everybody with the chord changes and the rhythm accents. There was a conga player in the room who rolled hash joints. It was decided that I would play piano on the basic track and later do an organ overdub.

I got a groove going which I heard on an Etta James cover version of "I Got You Babe" that worked. It had nothing to do with Sonny & Cher. I could not believe the Etta version. I heard it on the radio and thought it was unbelievable. I wanted to own it and bought it. They played the song in the studio to learn.

Keith picked up on it with a guitar part that meshed with my organ part. Jimmy Miller showed Charlie an accent and he just couldn’t get the part. Jimmy sat down at the drums and stayed there and played on the take. Charlie was unhappy but he hid it completely. Very graceful. He didn’t throw a temper tantrum but said "Why don’t you just play the drums?" He said it sincerely. He didn’t say it like I would have. (laughs). Bill played bass, I played piano. Mick and Keith played acoustic guitars. Keith then did a lead electric guitar part and I overdubbed the Hammond organ. We were out there together. Brian Jones was in the corner on the floor reading a magazine.

The recording went on for about four hours. Then all sorts of food arrived later in the night: Racks of lamb, salads, wines. Not a cheeseburger break like back in the States.

I told Mick that if he ever wanted to have horns on the record to call me. Over a half a year later an eight-track master tape showed up at my office at CBS Records. The note said "Dear Al, You once mentioned you could put some great horn parts on this. Well, go ahead and do it and send us the tape back. Love, Mick."

They were working on an album, and the record had an intro on it that we didn’t do. That was a separate piece that they tacked on to the front. I wrote a horn chart and hired a horn section and left a spot in the intro for a French horn solo. I was coached by Ray Alonge. I sent the tape back to Mick. Around a year later it came out without all the horn parts except the French horn at the intro. I think they really liked what I did and gave me credit. But I failed at what I set out to do which was putting horns on it like the Etta James record. I thought it was really great and I was able to play, what I think is some of my best playing I ever did in retrospect.

The next night Mick and Keith picked me up at the hotel, they were in the lobby, and we cut a track for Performance, the film Jagger was working on. It’s not the version in the movie or soundtrack. I played guitar.