Tour Bus

• January – Marty Balin becomes roommate with Bill Thompson, who eventually becomes the band manager. They live in an apartment at 16th and Clement in San Francisco, CA.  Marty starts auditioning people for the band.
• July – Balin has persuaded three investors to contribute $3,000 each, with his newly-formed group to retain a 25% interest, to purchase and renovate a failing pizza restaurant. His first recruit is guitarist Paul Kantner, whom Balin meets at local club the Drinking Gourd.  Kantner, in turn, recommends Jorma Kaukonen, whom he has met at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, and who is about to head for Europe when he is approached.
• Upright bass player Bob Harvey and drummer Jerry Peloquin round out the new band’s rhythm section. Signe Anderson, who had sung in Portland, WA, as the girl of Two Guys & A Girl, is heard by Balin at the Drinking  Gourd, where her brother is tending bar, and completes the line-up. They adopt their moniker after local blues musician Steve Talbot gives Kaukonen the name of a fictitious blues singer, Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane, a parody of Blind Lemon Jefferson.
• August – The group makes its debut on the opening night of the Matrix club, a gig reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle’s John Wasserman, which along with a later review from Ralph Gleason (who is convinced to see the band by Thompson, who worked as a copy boy at the Chronicle), leads to Airplane receiving contract offers from several major companies. Thompson, who worked as a copy boy at the San Francisco Chronicle, convinces Gleason to see the show at the Matrix. Peloquin is soon replaced by Skip Spence, who Balin thinks looks right for the part despite the fact that he has had little experience playing drums.
• October – A Tribute to Dr. Strange — an evening of music, dance and light shows — is organized by the Family Dog, a pioneering group of hippie promoters. Performing at the event are Jefferson Airplane, the Great Society’s singer. Kantner is much taken with Grace Slick, who is singing with another band on the bill, the Great Society.
• November – Also, in October, Harvey is replaced by Jack Casady, with whom Kaukonen played in Washington rock ‘n’ roll band, the Triumphs, in the late ’50s. He is about to start a new term at Montgomery Junior College in Maryland, when he receives the call from Kaukonen to join.  The band participates in the first San Francisco Mime Troupe benefit, organized by Bill Graham, also featuring Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg and John Handy.
• December – Jefferson Airplane performs at the inaugural concert held at Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium with the Great Society, the John Handy Quintet, the Mystery Trend and Sam Thomas & the Gentlemen’s band.
• With a $25,000 deal signed by newly-appointed manager Matthew Katz and RCA’s West Coast A&R man Neely Plumb, the group cuts its first tracks (It’s No Secret, Runnin’ Round The World, High Flyin’ Bird, It’s Alright and Run Around) for the label in Los Angeles, with Tommy Oliver producing.

• February – Following the release of its debut single, It’s No Secret, in January, the band plays at the Fillmore Auditorium on a bill with Big Brother & the Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Grass Roots and the Great Society. Throughout the year, the band will play the Fillmore over 10 times, sharing the bill on most of those occasions with either the Grateful Dead or Paul Butterfield.
• May – Spence parts with the band and heads to Mexico, before returning to the Bay Area to form Moby Grape. His replacement is jazz-schooled drummer Spencer Dryden, who is currently drumming with the Ashes (who later evolved to become the Peanut Butter Conspiracy).
• June – The group takes part in the “KFRC Presents The Beach Boys Summer Spectacular” at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, sharing the bill with the Beach Boys, Lovin’ Spoonful, Chad & Jeremy, Percy Sledge, The Byrds and Sir Douglas Quintet, among others. It was there that a group of fans handed out bumper stickers and buttons that read, “Jefferson Airplane Loves You”.
• August – Just prior to the release of its debut album, the band fires manager Katz, replacing him with the interim Bill Thompson.
• September – The band appears at the “Monterey Jazz Festival”, Monterey, CA, the first rock group to do so.
• October – Anderson, unable to cope with the demands of being a new mother and playing in a band, makes her final appearance with the Airplane at a 3-day stint at the Fillmore Auditorium.
• Slick makes her debut with the group, bringing with her two songs she has performed with the Great Society, White Rabbit and Somebody to Love.
• November – A Press party is held for the band at the Whisky a Go-Go, Hollywood, CA.

• February – Dryden parts with the band and joins New Riders of the Purple Sage in 1971. He is replaced by Joey Covington, who has been drumming with Hot Tuna.
• March – Volunteers reaches #34 in the UK.
• May – Balin is arrested for drug possession in a Bloomington, Minnesota hotel room. He will be sentenced to one year’s hard labor and a $100 fine, reduced on appeal to just the fine.
• June – The group co-headlines the “Bath Festival of Blues & Progressive Music” at the Royal Country Fairgrounds, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England, with Led Zeppelin.
• October – Slick, now pregnant by Kantner, is unable to make live appearances.
• Casady and Kaukonen, who have, for some time been playing occasional support gigs to Jefferson Airplane as Hot Tuna, either with other musicians or an acoustic duo, formalize the offshoot group. They recruit violinist Papa John Creach, who also becomes a member of Jefferson Airplane, making his debut with the band at Winterland on October 5th (Balin refuses to play the show in a tribute to Janis Joplin, who had died the previous day).
• A Hot Tuna gig at the New Orleans House, Berkeley, is recorded and given a low-key album release.
• December – Hot Tuna plays US dates with Covington as drummer and Papa John Creach on violin.

January – Slick gives birth to a daughter, who she and paul name China.

February – Compilation album, The Worst of The Jefferson Airplane, reaches #12 in the US.

April – Balin leaves the group, taking a year off before returning to produce the band Grootna for Columbia records in 1972, before becoming lead vocalist for Bodacious D.F. the following year.

May – Slick crashes her Mercedes into a wall near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. She is hospitalized briefly, causing Jefferson Airplane recording sessions to be cancelled.

July – Hot Tuna’s second album, First Pull Up Then Pull Down, makes #43 on the US charts.

August – Jefferson Airplane launches its own RCA distributed label, Grunt Records.

October – The first Grunt release, Jefferson Airplane’s Bark, climbs to #11 in the US, eventually earning a gold record. Bark makes #42 in the UK.

April – Jefferson Airplane members regroup for a fresh recording session, during which Covington leaves to join Black Kangaroo, and is replaced by ex-Turtles drummer, John Barbata.

May – Hot Tuna’s Burgers makes #68 on the US charts.

August – Airplane plays at the Roosevelt Raceway, Long Island, NY, as a part of the “Festival of Hope” benefit for the Nassau Society For Crippled Children And Adults.
Slick is maced and Kantner slightly injured when a scuffle ensues, after the group’s equipment manager, Jack Casady’s brother Chick, calls police “pigs” during a show at the Rubber Bowl, Akron, OH. Police arrest Chick and drag him offstage.

September – Long John Silver reaches #20 in the US. Long John Silver charts for one week at #30 in the UK.
US tour, which has included guitarist David Freiberg, fresh from Quicksilver Messenger Service, ends at Winterland, with Balin guesting. It will prove to be the last Jefferson Airplane gig.

The Hot Tuna members make a final break and resist any attempts to woo them back.