In the late 1960s, a lot of interesting stuff was going on. On one end of the country, there was the counterculture music and political movement in San Francisco, on the other the technological marvel of the Cold War space race with the former Soviet Union. It all converged in the summer of 1969, when Woodstock happened and America walked on the moon.
During a recent interview with two Jefferson Airplane cofounders now members of Hot Tuna - guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady - we discussed the two phenomena. Following are edited excerpts from a fascinating conversation.
An unidentified man wears a Purple Heart during a 1967 anti-war demonstration in San Francisco.... [+]
Jim Clash: You are often credited with pioneering the San Francisco sound, were a big part of that scene when politics and music converged?
Jorma Kaukonen: I wasn’t so much involved in the lyrics writing - I was more playing the music. But if you got caught up in that whole thing, it was easy to become full of yourself really quickly. And I think that happened. Of course, you think it’s going to last forever and all that kind of stuff. As the sixties moved on into the seventies, it became apparent that certainly something larger than our little world was happening, and that we were very fortunate to be in San Francisco when it did. Did we realize what was really going on, that we would have this conversation now or that there would be people teaching college courses in sixties music? Absolutely not.
Jack Casady: We had our element of being in a band, getting a record contract and touring, and that was pretty much our world. When the Woodstock thing happened, we realized something different possibly was going on. But there was also something else. In Berkeley, it was a lot more political. All of a sudden in order to put forward a political doctrine, those at Berkeley realized all these people were gathering at rock concerts. And then you saw this mix of politics and music become more entrenched. I think for some of that period, the later part, it was rather disheartening because what you were trying to do in a pure, artistic fashion was being usurped and used in a political fashion.
Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen have performed as Hot Tuna for almost five decades following the 1972... [+]
Clash: Did the frustration have anything to do with Hot Tuna’s formation?
Casady: I think that somewhat had to do with Jorma and I approaching Hot Tuna from a less political faction. We weren’t raising guitars above our heads like AK-47s saying, “Tear down the walls, mother…” That was all okay, but we felt it had run its course. We couldn’t imagine that being a regular part of our musical repertoire for our whole lives. It confined us to a certain message that wasn’t very musical. It was disturbing, and that’s why we dove into Hot Tuna. Our way with that group hopefully was to open people up so they’d think what they wanted, and not use us as carrying the cross, so to speak.
Clash: That said, there was the magic within the Airplane brought about by a commingling of unrest and talent.
Kaukonen: Jack and I are moderately talented guys. I’m sure we would have been okay no matter what happened. But the miracle of chemistry with the Airplane really set us up for the rest of our lives. The disparate group of characters - everybody brought a different approach to the table. People go, “How did you figure out the lead guitar part for any of the songs Paul [Kantner], Grace [Slick] or Marty [Balin] wrote?” The answer is it’s so different from anything I would have written had I been writing a lot of songs back then that it was a real challenge to pull something together. So if I had a cool guitar solo, I owe them a debt of gratitude for giving me a canvas to paint on. No question about it: It wasn’t like playing blues or traditional folk music – it was really interesting stuff.
Clash: Another activity during the summer of Woodstock was the space race. Do you remember where you were when Apollo 11 landed on the moon?
Kaukonen: No, but I remember the splashdown. I think I was home because my ex-wife – may she rest in peace – was watching TV and commented that I had just missed it [laughs]. So I was probably out in San Francisco somewhere. Jack and I are both from [Washington] DC, and would visit the Smithsonian. I remember when they unveiled Chuck Yeager’s Bell X-1. I went down and got his autograph, and I still have it.
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon in summer 1969, shortly before the Woodstock music... [+]
Clash: How about you, Jack - remember where you were?
Casady: Not exactly [laughs]. Again, we were busy, doing our careers and music. But at the same time out of the corner of your eye, you’re watching that whole dynamic. It was a continuum not only of various science fiction novels we had read about the future, but was so odd in that it was actually coming true. I remember thinking, ‘By Golly, they did it!’ When Sputnik went up in 1957, I was just 13 – that was the beginning.
Kaukonen: We had to stick it to the Russians [laughs].
