Category: Music ISBN-10: 0741436566
Type: Non-Fiction
Copyright: 11/1/06
93 photos, 32 interviews, 5 star reviews, 266 question and answers, 121 live performances are examined and 60 unreleased studio gems are discovered. "Take Me To A Circus Tent" is the Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual.
Chapter 2: 1966 “I Feel Something New”
Great Society (Grace Slick) -
If you haven’t been fortunate to have heard the material from the Great Society I hope you will give it strong consideration. They were one of the most underrated bands of their time period. Even if Grace had not become part of the Airplane my feelings would have been the same. If you took the sounds of a psychedelic and garage band from that era, mixed in the sound of the Music Explosion (Little Bit O’ Soul), sprinkled the Mamas And The Papas (Especially the break during California Dreaming), and toped it off with some of the Beatles circa 65, and 66, you would get a general idea of the Great Society’s music! Please check out www.sundazed.com to see about purchasing the excellent CD Born To Be Burned from 1996 (Sundazed 11027). It includes the single Somebody To Love (Known as Someone To Love), and the flip-side Free Advice, as well as many other studio tracks and alternate versions. To see if any of the CD pressings of the two live albums originally released in 1968 known as Conspicuous Only In Its Absence and How It Was are available please visit: www.ccmusic.com and www.gemm.com.
Circa 1966
The complete live and studio information for every verified song from the band! Documentation about the single Somebody To Love (Called Someone To Love), and Free Advice, as well as a listing of the members of the band, are repeated from the 1965 entry. * Means it is an unreleased song, or version. Thank you to Richie Unterberger, (Author of several music books) of www.richieunterberger.com, for helping to document the Great Society did have a forgotten member named Oscar. Thank you to Darby Slick for acknowledging maybe for the first time in print that Jennie Piersol was a one time member.
Oscar Daniels- (Always remembered as Oscar, he replaced David Miner on Rhythm guitar the last few months of the bands existence). Peter van Gelder remembered Oscar’s last name during my interview with him.
Bard Dupont- Bass (He was on the studio recordings).
David Miner- (Also has been called David Minor) Rhythm guitar and vocals.
Jennie Piersol- Vocals (An original member for a very short period of time. The band started with two female singers! She was the sister-in-law to Darby and Jerry). This may be the first time she has been documented as a member of the group. In the 1969 section you’ll read about a project both Grace and Jennie worked on, but at separate times!
Darby Slick- Lead guitar.
Jerry Slick- Drums (Married to Grace at the time).
Grace Slick- Vocals.
Peter van Gelder- Bass and saxophone (He was on the two live recordings issued by Columbia Records in 1968. You may have seen him referred to as Peter van Der Gelder).
In the 1960’s a San Francisco publication called Cream Puff War had interviews with members of the Great Society. The songs discussed but never released either live and or studio were Deep Blue Sea, I’m A Woman, Proud Blues, and Shazam. These tunes have unfortunately never surfaced, even in unreleased fashion. Darby Slick told me the first song he wrote for the band was When I Get You Down To The Ocean. Jerry Slick told me on the last show the band ever played they performed a song by the famous jazz trumpet-player Miles Davis (Jerry couldn’t recall which one). It would have been fascinating as to the title and their arrangement. Excerpt from the Marty Balin Interview! Craig: “You did some great shows with Paul Kantner, when he had the Galactic Reunion tour and the regular Jefferson Starship band. 4/5/03 Marin Center Exhibit Hall, San Rafael, California, for example. That show had appearances by Signe Anderson and Spencer Dryden. Were they enjoyable to you and how was it to see Spencer and Signe again.?”
Marty Balin: “I loved the reunions, I wished Paul kept doing that. It’s great to see these people again.”
Craig: “Paul had good things to say about you and those shows. Would you work with him again?”
Marty Balin: “I would work with him anytime. I want to work with Paul Kantner. Paul and I could do an entire evening together. It would be great. How about if Paul and I played old folk songs and some Dino Valente tunes?”
Craig: “Tell me the city and date.”
Marty Balin: “You see, it would be great. I would love to play with Jack, and Jorma, and Paul. I would play with Paul and Jack. I would love to play with Jorma and get to sing his songs. I love Jorma’s songs. We could play the blues, folk, whatever. Can we do it my way? Now there aren’t as many people that want to hear the music. I don’t have time to promote it on a website. I’m busy writing my own songs, reading, and playing guitar.”
Craig: “What has it been like performing with Signe Anderson, Grace Slick, Darby Gould, and Diana Mangano over forty plus years?”
Marty Balin: “Grace was great, I loved working with her. Darby blows me away. I love to work with her. She is a great talent. Diana is nice working with. I want to get her to write songs with me. Signe was a great singer when she was young, her voice was great.”
Craig: “If only three Marty Balin songs could be saved for the time capsule which would you salvage?”
Marty Balin: “Miracles, Comin’ Back To Me, and It’s No Secret.”
Excerpt
"Craig Fenton knows so much about the Jefferson Airplane and Family, I was asking him the questions." Marty Balin 2006.
Professional Reviews
Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual
1/20/07 http://theglenblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/take-me-to-circus-tent-jefferson_20.html Blog Critics (100,000 visiters daily)www.blogcritics.org
I can only say to Glen Boyd thank you so much for the kind words. Blog Critics has days that 100,000 people visit the sight.
Saturday, January 20, 2007 Glen Boyd
Take Me To A Circus Tent: The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual
"The object of this book was not to reinvent the wheel, or in this case reinvent the Plane, " author Craig Fenton explained to me earlier this week, describing his remarkable new book on the Jefferson Airplane.
"The aim was rather to help the spread the word, and to keep the torch going of one of the greatest bands ever."
Amen Brother.
Make no mistake. Craig Fenton's Take Me To A Circus Tent: The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual is not just any rock book. It is in fact, the final, definitive word on the music of the band which most defined the so-called psychedelic acid-rock "San Francisco" sound of the late sixties (the very sound which would define an entire generation).
The fact is, this may be the most extensive, meticulously researched account of the music of any rock and roll band ever. Period. From a purely historical, and especially from a musical standpoint, Take Me To A Circus Tent delves as deeply into the sixties phenomenon that was the Jefferson Airplane as any rock and roll book ever has.
But let's get one thing straight right up front. This is a book which focuses strictly on the music.
If you are looking for one of those sex, drugs, and rock and roll exposes, you'd best look elsewhere. You are not going to find any tales of band members lying face down in a pool of their own vomit. Nor will you find the sort of acid-fueled sex-orgies which have characterized the written accounts of other rock stars from the sixties, fallen and otherwise.
Not that Craig Fenton didn't have his chance however. In the extensive research that went into this book, Fenton was given what amounted to an all-access pass, resulting in rare footage such as this, a great clip from the Dick Cavett show in 1969 of the Airplane performing "Somebody To Love, " with David Crosby sitting in:There are complete interviews (and opportunities to dish the dirt) with no less than 32 Jefferson Airplane insiders contained within the 543 pages of this book. These include everybody from original members Paul Kantner and Marty Balin (who says that Fenton "knows so much about the Jefferson Airplane family I had to ask him the questions"), to guys who were there like Moby Grape's Jerry Miller and Big Brother And The Holding Company's Peter Albin (who remembers the late JA drummer Spencer Dryden).
These interviews make up the latter half of the book. For the first part, Fenton exhaustively and extensively recounts the complete history of every single song written, recorded or performed by the Jefferson Airplane, as well as it off-shoots such as Hot Tuna and the various Jefferson Starship aggregations.
The result is the sort of scholarly work that could have only come from the pen of a true music obsessive. Craig Fenton is basically an Airplane archivist. From his roots as a fan who discovered the Airplane after hearing "The Ballad Of You Me & Pooneil" on progressive rock station WNEW in the sixties, to his own career in rock radio, he has meticulously documented the evolution --the flight path if you will-- of the Jefferson Airplane.
In Take Me To A Circus Tent, no less than 121 Jefferson Airplane shows are broken down song by song. There are also some 93 photos, many of which have never been seen before. But we are not just talking about photos and setlists here. Fenton breaks down everything from the first and final performances of individual songs; who played what and when; to songs never before officially documented at all.
On page 149 for example, we learn of an incredible show performed in San Bernadino where the songs "Wooden Ships, " and "Volunteers" were performed for the very first time. Later, we learn of a show in 1969 at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park days later where "Good Shepherd" is debuted, but sung by Grace Slick, rather than the version sung by Jorma Kaukonen on the Volunteers album.
That's the type of detail we are talking about here.
However, Take me To A Circus Tent is by no means complete. How could it be?
By his own yardstick, Craig Fenton refused to include any information on shows or performances that he could not confirm either through interviews or tapes from his own rather extensive archives.
For example, I had no luck finding my own point of reference to a 1969 show in Honolulu, Hawaii where I had my first exposure to the powers of Jefferson Airplane's live performances myself. As a thirteen year old attending that show at Honolulu's Civic Auditorium, I met the band on a day that also saw one of Hot Tuna's earliest performances opening for JA. Paul Kantner was also busted for marijuana posession that very day in Honolulu near Diamond Head.
Still, this book is about as complete as rock books get.
Word to the wise though. It is also laid out as something of a master thesis. This is definitely a book intended more to be painstakingly analyzed then it is to be read from cover to cover.
Regardless, I would consider Take Me To A Circus Tent: The Jeferson Airplane Flight Manual your personal reference guide to one of the greatest rock bands ever.
As rock and roll books go, this truly is as complete as it gets.
Craig Fenton & The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual
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• Brandon Daviet Flies with Author Craig Fenton and The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual
Book Review: Take Me to a Circus Tent (The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual) by Craig Fenton
Published: January 20, 2007
Type: Review
Section: Books
Filed Under: Books: Nonfiction, Books: Entertainment, Books: Biography, Music: Rock
Writer: Brandon Daviet
Brandon Daviet's BC Writer page
Brandon Daviet's personal site
Despite being cut from a genetically different cloth, sports fanatics and music fanatics have a thing or two in common. While most sports fans usually pine over self-preservation and athletic skill, music fans (I’m a card-carrying member of the latter, for the record) tend to lean more towards slacking off and inventing new methods of self-destruction. One of the two camps' common traits lies in their undying, obsessive love for their chosen heroes. Sports fanatics tend to spend their time documenting performance statistics while music fanatics document musical performances and the comments made about them. Overall it’s the same kind of thing and is really just another facet of the human race's infatuation with fame and celebrity.
For author Craig Fenton, his fan-boy obsession centers around the comings and goings of Jefferson Airplane, the highly psychedelic band that formed in the womb of the legendary ‘60s San Francisco music scene. Jefferson Airplane is perhaps most famous for introducing the world, and Hunter S. Thompson’s drugged-up lawyer, to the song "White Rabbit". But the story of Jefferson Airplane, who have also been known in leaner times as Jefferson Starship, is far more involved than many people know, as Fenton details lovingly in his new book: Take Me To A Circus Tent (The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual).
Circus Tent is a treat for both hardcore fans of Jefferson Airplane and casual listeners alike. While I consider myself a fairly well-read music fan, my exposure to Jefferson Airplane has been mostly limited to owning a copy of Surrealistic Pillow, buying the soundtrack to the 1987 movie Mannequin for the song “We Built This City, ” and seeing guitarist and the band's founder Paul Kantner perform the album Blows Against the Empire for a small crowd at a bar I worked in several years ago.
Fenton, on the other hand, knows his stuff - and the book is a mind-boggling, phonebook-size documentation of the band's history. The book shares a lot in style with the Deadbase, the meticulously compiled history of the live performances of the Grateful Dead that any Deadhead worth his weight in patchouli oil owns. The main difference being that while The Grateful Dead and their fans carefully documented the band's career from day one, Jefferson Airplane's history relies more on recollection than historical record.
In any event, Take Me to a Circus Tent is a mesmerizing book that will provide anyone who picks it up with hours upon hours of enjoyment. This is truly a unique book and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the roots of psychedelic music or the band who once asked the world, “Don’t You Want Somebody to Love?”
