We're drawing dangerously close to the point where kiddies refer to SSS as "music geezers talking about music geezers.'' But how could we not mention the 70th birthday of Grace Slick?I know, I know. Spoils it for me, too. Grace Slick was too sexy, surly and snarly good to get old. When we listen to "White Rabbit'' or "Somebody to Love'' we want to think about the former model with the yowly vocals who helped transform Jefferson Airplane into a smoldering rock powerhouse.
Some great musicians came through Airplane, and later Starship. Marty Balin, Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen (who would split and form Hot Tuna with Jack Casady) and Skip Spence (Moby Grape). But the key change came when Slick replaced Signe Anderson at the mic. Can you imagine anyone else delivering the lyrics to those songs?
"White Rabbit'' ushered in the age of psychedelic rock with Slick's mind-altering intro:
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small
From there she just blows the drawers off the song. She was 27 at the time, and that's the way I'm going to remember her. You can too by viewing this video:
Always loved Grace. There's nothing like having "White Rabbit" on the stereo cranked as loud as it will go. Pretty honest autobiography she wrote a few years ago that's worth hunting down. The other night I came across a YouTube video where Ronnie Spector sang "Be My Baby" with Belinda Carlisle and Grace Slick as her Ronettes. Can you imagine?
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