(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sun 19 April 2026 20:00, UK
Legacy is a strange thing. Something that lasts a lifetime can be created in only a few days. If you do something powerful enough, or capture enough attention, immortality can be secured in a single moment, and Jefferson Airplane could certainly attest to that.
It’s not that Jefferson Airplane was a one-hit wonder. After forming in 1965, the band played a major role in shaping the classic San Francisco sound. It was a scene that took rock and roll and pushed it further, building on the countercultural energy already forming and soaking it in a double dose of acid.
When considering the East and West divide of America’s bands at that point in time, a group like Jefferson Airplane was a big part in bridging the chasm. They sounded distinct and different. They sounded like their environment, as the music was not only sun-soaked, but was dripping in the experimentation going on around them in the hippie epicentre of Haight-Ashbury, but also the darkness that undeniably lived there amongst the burnt out, the missing teens and the rising number of deaths.
The ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’ mindset was embodied by the group and instantly they felt representative of their moment, but the band itself was happy to admit that when it came to their legacy and their position in legend, all of that came from a mere ten or 11-day stretch.
That golden run started in 1966 when their original vocalist, Signe Toly Anderson, quit and was replaced by Grace Slick. Instantly, the band gained the voice that they’d come to be known for. When thinking of the group, you don’t hear Anderson or even any of the men on the lineup, but only ever hear Slick’s wailing.
And chances are, you hear her wailing on ‘Somebody to Love’, or ‘White Rabbit’, the two songs Slick first brought to the table, and the two that the band know made them.
It’s those two hits on their album Surrealistic Pillow that made them icons, and it all came together fast. “We did it in ten or 11 days. And Grace brought two iconic songs, ‘White Rabbit’ and ‘Somebody to Love’,” Jack Casady recalled before holding his hands up and admitting, “Those two songs are the reason we’re in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
Despite having been a band for a good while before, and having already released their debut Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, which earned them a cult following, the band themselves know that their position as a history-defining act lies on Slick’s shoulders.
“Nobody sounded like Grace back then, and she was also, to put it mildly, not a conservative person,” Casady said, as suddenly this new vocalist crashed into their lives and demanded the world pay attention. On stage, it was Slick whom everyone would watch, and on tape, it was her voice that got people going, bringing the energy and excitement to the group that would make them legends in practically an instant.
