Jefferson Starship - Original Album Classics (2009) [5CD Box Set] RE-UP

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Jefferson Starship - Original Album Classics (2009) [5CD Box Set] RE-UP

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Jefferson Starship - Original Album Classics (2009) [5CD Box Set] RE-UP

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It seems, as with other volumes in Sony BMG Europe's Original Albums Classics series, that the label has assembled the very best full-lengths that Jefferson Starship cut – all the records contained here scored at least one hit single, and in the case of at least four, more than one. While Dragon Fly and Red Octopus had hits – such as "Ride the Tiger" from the former and "Miracles" from the latter, it was Spitfire that put them over the top with "With Your Love" and "Switchblade." These are likely appeal to the older fans of this band, but the '80s were kind to Jefferson Starship, too, with Earth and Freedom at Point Zero. These recordings contained singles such as "Count on Me" and "Jane," respectively. The first three albums in this set were recorded pretty much as albums with the '70s mode of assemblage considered, while the latter two focused more on hits. Either way, fans will find this set – with all remastered recordings and bonus tracks galore – to be attractive and affordably priced.

allmusic.com biography

Jefferson Airplane, the seminal San Francisco psychedelic rock band of the 1960s, noted for its hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit," began to fragment in the early '70s. Lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady increasingly were preoccupied with their spin-off group Hot Tuna, while the band's other creative axis, rhythm guitarist/singer Paul Kantner (born Paul Lorin Kantner in San Francisco, CA, March 17, 1941) and singer Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing in or near Chicago, IL, October 30, 1939), having become a romantic couple, had their own musical and political interests, and singer Marty Balin (born Martyn Jerel Buchwald in Cincinnati, OH, January 30, 1942), the odd man out, had become sufficiently disenchanted with the band he himself had formed that he quit Jefferson Airplane at the end of a tour over the Thanksgiving weekend in 1970. The following week saw the release of Blows Against the Empire, Kantner's debut solo album, which he had recorded with a long list of musician friends from Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, among others. To pay tribute to this loose-knit studio ensemble and refer to the album's science fiction theme, Kantner co-billed the album to "Jefferson Starship," even though there was, as yet, no such permanent entity. Nevertheless, the album featured performers who would be members of Jefferson Starship when it was established as a real band, in particular Kantner, Slick, and Quicksilver Messenger Service member David Freiberg (born in Boston, MA, August 24, 1938).

A year later, in late 1971, Kantner and Slick released a duo album, Sunfighter. One track, "Earth Mother," was a song written by Jack Traylor, a high-school English teacher and friend of Kantner's, and on lead guitar was teenager Craig Chaquico (born September 26, 1954), a student of Traylor's and a member of his band, Steelwind. Jefferson Airplane gave what turned out to be its final performance in September 1972, by which time Freiberg had joined the group. The next album out of the Jefferson Airplane troupe was Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun, credited to Kantner, Slick, and Freiberg, and released in the spring of 1973, an album that featured the other members of Jefferson Airplane in subsidiary roles, and on which Chaquico also appeared. Many of the same musicians appeared on Grace Slick's debut solo album, Manhole, released in early 1974.

When it became apparent that Kaukonen and Casady were not interested in reconvening Jefferson Airplane, Kantner decided to form a permanent touring band without them. The name "Jefferson Airplane" was co-owned by Casady, Kantner, Kaukonen, Slick, and the band's manager, Bill Thompson. So, Kantner determined to call the revised unit Jefferson Starship. The new band began with the remaining elements of the old one: Kantner on rhythm guitar and vocals; Slick on vocals; Freiberg on vocals and keyboards; Papa John Creach (born John Henry Creach in Beaver Falls, PA, May 18, 1917; died February 22, 1994) on electric violin; and John Barbata (born in Passaic, NJ, April 1, 1945) on drums. Chaquico, still a teenager, but at least out of high school, was the logical choice for lead guitarist. Jorma Kaukonen's brother Peter (who had appeared on Blows Against the Empire, Sunfighter, and Manhole) was brought in on bass. The band began rehearsals in January 1974 and opened its first tour in Chicago on March 19. The tour ran through April, after which the band prepared to go into the studio. Peter Kaukonen did not work out, however, and he was replaced in June by British veteran Pete Sears (born May 27, 1948), who had worked on Manhole.

During the recording sessions in July, Kantner reunited with Marty Balin to write the power ballad "Caroline," which Balin agreed to sing on the album. Kantner and Slick hedged their bets by putting their names on either side of the name "Jefferson Starship" on the cover of the album, Dragon Fly, when it was released in October 1974. They needn't have worried. Even though the single "Ride the Tiger" petered out at number 84, Dragon Fly just missed the Top Ten and went gold within six months, selling as well as Jefferson Airplane albums generally did. Balin joined the band on-stage at its performance at the Winterland ballroom in San Francisco on November 24 (four years after his final Jefferson Airplane appearance) and then agreed to join Jefferson Starship as a permanent member.

With Balin aboard, the eight-member Jefferson Starship went back into the studio in February 1975 to record its second album and came out in June with Red Octopus, which turned out to be the best-selling album of the entire Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship career, largely due to the presence of Balin's ballad "Miracles," which became a Top Ten hit. (Slick and Sears' "Play on Love" was also a singles chart entry.) The album first hit number one (which no Jefferson Airplane album had ever done) in September, and bounced in and out of the top spot for the next two months. Eventually, it sold over two million copies. (At this point, Creach quietly exited the band.)

Red Octopus set a pattern for the next two Jefferson Starship albums. Balin, whose love songs had dominated the early days of Jefferson Airplane, but who had been shunted aside by the more political and abstract interests of other bandmembers, returned to a major role thanks to the commercial success of "Miracles." Unlike Jefferson Airplane, which valued the individual expression of its members, however bizarre, Jefferson Starship was interested in making commercial music, even if it was written by people outside the band. Spitfire, released in June 1976, was another million-seller, boasting the Balin-sung Top 20 hit "With Your Love." Earth, released in February 1978, also went platinum, spurred by the Top Ten hit "Count On Me" and its Top 20 follow-up, "Runaway."

The commercial success masked increasing personnel problems, however, and those problems came out during the band's European tour in June 1978, when Slick, suffering from some combination of illness and substance abuse problems, missed shows and gave substandard performances. She left the tour early, and at its conclusion Balin also quit the band. After the remaining members returned home to regroup, Barbata was involved in a serious automobile accident that forced him to drop out. This left remaining members Kantner, Freiberg, Chaquico, and Sears to figure out what to do next. In January 1979, they brought in veteran rock drummer Aynsley Dunbar (born in Liverpool, England, January 10, 1946) to replace Barbata. In April, Mickey Thomas (born in Cairo, GA, December 3, 1949), who possessed the soaring tenor voice behind the Elvin Bishop Group's 1976 hit "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," was drafted in to replace both Slick and Balin. This revamped sextet went into the studio in June 1979, and in October the pointedly titled fifth Jefferson Starship album, Freedom at Point Zero, was released. Critics carped that, with Balin and Slick gone, and Thomas installed, the band's sound was indistinguishable from that of arena rock stalwarts like Boston, Foreigner, and Journey. But, of course, those bands were selling in the millions, whatever the critics thought, and Chaquico even took the comparisons as a compliment. The album spawned a Top 20 hit in "Jane" and, while it did not match the success of its predecessors, it reached the Top Ten and went gold, validating the new version of the band, at least in commercial terms.

________ Jefferson Starship - Original Album Classics Box Set contains: ________

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Jefferson Starship - Dragon Fly (1974)
EAC-FLAC with CUE & LOG - 261 MB | 42:44 min | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 102 MB

allmusic.com says:
Credited to "Grace Slick/Paul Kantner/Jefferson Starship," Dragon Fly was the transitional album between the various shifting aggregations Slick and Kantner had been recording with as Jefferson Airplane dissolved in the early '70s and the new Jefferson Starship (which essentially was the Airplane with a new guitarist and bassist – Craig Chaquico and Pete Sears). But where such preceding efforts as Sunfighter, Manhole, and Baron Von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun had suffered from indulgence and a lack of focus, Dragon Fly, from the first note of its rocking leadoff track, "Ride the Tiger" (a chart single), was a unified effort. Like much of the Airplane catalog and all of the Starship albums to follow, the album suffered from the band's communal approach to song selection (the eight tracks credited 12 writers, half of them bandmembers), leading to an unevenness in the material. But unlike the recent Kantner/Slick/etc. albums, it sounded like the work of a seasoned band. (It didn't hurt that the album was cut just after a tour, instead of before one.) Especially notable was Chaquico, who on such tracks as "All Fly Away" and "Hyperdrive" demonstrated that he was a distinctive lead guitarist able to define the Starship sound just as the very different Jorma Kaukonen had the Airplane. But what turned Dragon Fly into an artistic and commercial triumph (it was the most popular album any of these people had been involved with in five years) was the return, for one song, of former Airplane singer Marty Balin, since that one song was the epic power ballad "Caroline," which became a radio favorite and remains one of the best songs the Airplane/Starship ever did.

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Jefferson Starship - Red Octopus (1975)
EAC-FLAC with CUE & LOG - 408 MB | 62:35 min | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 143 MB

allmusic.com says:
Technically speaking, Red Octopus was the first album credited to Jefferson Starship, though practically the same lineup made Dragon Fly, credited to Grace Slick/Paul Kantner/Jefferson Starship. The difference, however, was crucial: Marty Balin was once again a fully integrated bandmember, writing or co-writing five of the ten tracks. And there can be little doubt that it was Balin's irresistible ballad "Miracles," the biggest hit single in the Jefferson Whatever catalog, that propelled Red Octopus to the top of the charts, the only Jefferson album to chart that high and the best-selling album in their collective lives. 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. Now, the collective was incorporating his taste without quite integrating it – "Miracles," with its strings and sax solo by nonband member Irv Cox, was hardly a characteristic Airplane/Starship track. But then, neither exactly was Papa John Creach's showcase, "Git Fiddler," or bassist Pete Sears' instrumental "Sandalphon," which sounded like something from an early Procol Harum album. Slick has three strong songs, among them the second single "Play on Love." Like Dragon Fly, Red Octopus reflected a multiplicity of musical tastes; there were ten credited songwriters, seven of whom were in the band. If there is any consistency in this material, it is in subject matter (love songs). The album is more ballad-heavy and melodic than the Airplane albums, which made it more accessible to the broader audience it reached, though "Sweeter Than Honey" is as tough a rocker as the band ever played.

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Jefferson Starship - Spitfire (1976)
EAC-FLAC with CUE & LOG - 263 MB | 42:31 min | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 101 MB

allmusic.com says:
Spitfire was Jefferson Starship's 1976 follow-up to the chart-topping Red Octopus (1975), and it found the band in a cooperative mood. All seven bandmembers earned writing credits on at least one of the nine songs, along with eight outsiders, and even drummer John Barbata got a lead vocal on the simple rock & roll song "Big City." But the three main power centers in the group remained in place. Singer/guitarist Paul Kantner continued to turn out his lengthy, complex songs with their exhortatory, vaguely political lyrics (the five-minute "Dance with the Dragon" and the seven-minute "Song to the Sun: Ozymandias/Don't Let It Rain"). Singer Grace Slick contributed her own idiosyncratic compositions, simultaneously elliptical and passionately stated ("Hot Water" and "Switchblade"). And singer Marty Balin, whose romantic ballad "Miracles" had fueled the success of Red Octopus, wrote (or located) and sang more songs of love and pleasure ("Cruisin'," "St. Charles," "With Your Love," and "Love Lovely Love"). Weaving the three styles together were the fluid lead guitar work of Craig Chaquico and the alternating bass and keyboard playing of David Freiberg and Pete Sears. The result was an album that quickly scaled the charts, spending six consecutive weeks at number three in Billboard and going platinum. That it didn't do better on the band's considerable career momentum can be put down to the relatively disappointing nature of the material. There was no "Miracles" on the album, to begin with. Grunt Records released the more modest "With Your Love" as a single and got it into the Top 20, but the closest thing to "Miracles" was really "St. Charles," a song that certainly had some of the same elements but lacked the kind of direct emotional statement that made "Miracles" a classic. Similarly, "Dance with the Dragon" was no "Ride the Tiger" (from Dragon Fly [1974]), and while "Switchblade" was an unusually clear statement of romantic intent from Slick (whose "lyrical wordplay is…not easily accessible yet compelling and thought-provoking," as 2004 reissue annotator Jeff Tamarkin generously says of "Hot Water"), its provocative title made it an unlikely choice for an adult contemporary hit. Spitfire was more than the sum of its parts, boasting the sort of vocal interplay and instrumental virtuosity that had always been the hallmarks of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship. If the band had taken more time to write and find better songs, it might have matched the sales and quality of its predecessor.

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Jefferson Starship - Earth (1978)
EAC-FLAC with CUE & LOG - 261 MB | 42:08 min | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 100 MB

allmusic.com says:
Jefferson Starship had figured out how to craft high-octane, high-gloss AOR rock with Red Octopus, a highlight of mainstream hard rock in the '70s. Instead of being a launching pad to greater things, the album turned out to be the group's pinnacle, and in the years following its release, the group simply recycled its ideas. In the case of its sequel, Spitfire, that was acceptable, because they had enough hooks to make the similarity forgivable. On Earth, however, they had neither the melodies, hooks or style to make a second rewrite of Red Octopus tolerable. Earth has the form, but not the content, of Jefferson Starship's masterpiece – it just sits there, lacking either hard rockers or sappy ballads. Arguably, it's the group's low point of the '70s.

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Jefferson Starship - Freedom At Point Zero (1979)
EAC-FLAC with CUE & LOG - 284 MB | 42:29 min | MP3 CBR 320 Kbps - 101 MB

allmusic.com says:
Freedom at Point Zero is not a great Jefferson Starship album; the wonder is that it is as good as it is. Since the band's previous album, the Top Ten, million-selling Earth, the group had lost its two lead singers, Grace Slick and Marty Balin, and they had been replaced by Mickey Thomas. "Jane," released as a single in advance of the album, displayed the result: even before Thomas' soaring tenor entered, it sounded like Foreigner. But it also made the Top 20, which helped the album into the Top Ten and to a gold record award. Reluctant leader Paul Kantner came back to the fore, and, at least on the energetic "Girl with the Hungry Eyes" (a chart single), that was a good thing, though the more typically discursive, rhythmically static songs like "Lightning Rose" and "Things to Come" (on which Thomas, through the magic of overdubbing, replaced Slick and Balin) slowed things down. Other songwriting contributors such as bassist Pete Sears and guitarist Craig Chaquico brought in generic arena rock bombast like "Awakening" and "Rock Music," making this a typically uneven effort. Although Freedom at Point Zero demonstrated that the group could soldier on, the band without its quirky individualists was ultimately too generic, which made Slick's return on the next album welcome.