Bill Thompson, manager of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, dies

Bill Thompson, who for years piloted the careers of San Francisco psychedelic rock bands Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, Hot Tuna and, later, Starship, died Monday at his home in Mill Valley. He was 70.

The cause was a massive heart attack, his friend Cynthia Bowman said.

Mr. Thompson took over the management duties of Jefferson Airplane from rock promoter Bill Graham in 1968, leading the group as it rode high on the success of era-defining singles “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” and put in appearances at historic concerts such as Woodstock, Altamont and the Newport Pop Festival.

“Because of the way we did business back then, Bill was like a band member,” Jorma Kaukonen, guitarist and vocalist for Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, said in a statement posted to the Relix website. “His instruments were his phone, his desk and his voice. He was one of us.”

Crucial direction

Mr. Thompson was responsible for acquiring the 20-room home at 2400 Fulton St., adjacent to Golden Gate Park, which served as the band’s headquarters and crash pad. He bought it for $73,000 in 1968 and sold it in 1985 for $700,000.

“We had great parties there, we did all of our business there — it was a great place,” he recalled in an interview with the music historian Pat Thomas.

Under his guidance, Jefferson Airplane — singers and guitarists Marty Balin, Paul Kantner and Kaukonen, singer Grace Slick, bassist Jack Casady and drummer Spencer Dryden — launched its first major European tour, alongside the Doors. It released the albums “Crown of Creation” and “Volunteers,” both commercial hits. It also went through a period of major personal upheavals, during which members departed, Kantner and Slick had a daughter together out of wedlock, and Slick suffered near-fatal injuries while racing Kaukonen in a tunnel on the Presidio Parkway approaching the Golden Gate Bridge.

Mr. Thompson continued to manage the Jefferson Airplane’s business affairs after the group’s split in 1972, helping place its songs in television shows, commercials and blockbuster movies such as “Platoon” and “Forrest Gump.”

He also worked with its members on their subsequent solo and spinoff projects, including Jefferson Starship, Hot Tuna and Starship.

Mr. Thompson prided himself on the fact that he was the second-most-successful artist manager in RCA Records history, after Col. Tom Parker, who managed Elvis Presley.

“Col. Parker used to call me his favorite manager,” Mr. Thompson said in an interview with the website Maximum Ink. “Elvis had a favored-nation clause in his contract, that means no one can get a higher payment than what Elvis would get. In 1968, when I became manager of Jefferson Airplane, I negotiated our contract from 5 percent to 7 percent, so Elvis got 7 percent. In 1971, I negotiated our contract from 7 percent to 10 percent, so Elvis got 10 percent. I told everyone that I doubled Elvis’ contract in three years.”

William Carl Thompson was born on June 22, 1944, in Oklahoma City. He moved to San Francisco to attend college and briefly worked at The San Francisco Chronicle as a copy boy.

Evolving into manager

In 1964, he moved into an apartment at 16th Avenue and Clement Street with aspiring songwriter Balin, who formed Jefferson Airplane while they were roommates, and helped the band get its first mention in the press — a review of a performance at the Matrix nightclub penned by Chronicle jazz critic Ralph Gleason, who went on to write the liner notes for its first album.

The band decided to hire Mr. Thompson after dissolving its partnerships with its first manager, Matthew Katz, whose firing led to a legal wrangle that stretched out over 22 years, and its second manager, Graham.

“Grace especially did not like Bill Graham — he was not her idea of a manager,” Mr. Thompson told Thomas. “He was tough — a strict guy who wanted them to work, work, work. He wanted them to tour, which they really didn’t want to do, so they told me and Marty to go and fire Bill Graham. That was like firing King Kong. It wasn’t fun at all. Anyway, after that point people kept calling me up, and I just kind of took over. It wasn’t really a planned thing. It just kind of happened that I evolved into a manager.”

Apart from his artist management duties, Mr. Thompson worked as a consultant for Polygram, MCA and Relativity Records.

He is survived by his second wife, Stephanie, and a son, Tyrone, from his first marriage.