[ad_1]
Marty Balin, a 1960s "San Francisco Sound" patron both as founder and singer of the Jefferson Airplane and co-owner of the club where the plane and other groups have performed, died Sept. 27 in Tampa. He was 76 years old.
He died en route to a hospital, said spokesman Ryan Romenesko. The cause of death was not immediately available. Mr. Balin, who underwent an emergency cardiac operation in 2016, sued a New York hospital earlier this year, stating that a tracheotomy had paralyzed a vocal cord at that time and had caused other damage.
Mr. Balin was a former folk musician who formed the plane in 1965 and, in two years, was at the heart of a national wave that briefly rivaled the Beatles' influence and even inspired the Beatles. Sgt. Pepper "album.
The aircraft was the scene of acts such as the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, who played at the Matrix, a ballroom that Mr. Balin helped direct and for which the aircraft served as a home group.
The sound of San Francisco was a psychedelic blend of blues, folk, rock and jazz and the musical expression of the hippie lifestyle emerges.
Mr. Balin himself was known for his desire for tenacity in the ballads "Today" and "It's No Secret" and on the political anthem "Volunteers". In the mid-1970s, the plane regrouped to become Jefferson Starship. Balin sang at the head of successes such as "Miracles" (which he co-wrote), "With Your Love" and "Count on Me". He later enjoyed solo success with "Hearts" and "Atlanta Lady".
The Jefferson plane in 1966. Top right, the singer Grace Slick. From left to right: Marty Balin, Jorma Kaukonen, Paul Kantner, Spencer Dryden and Jack Casady. (AP)
The plane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, but Mr. Balin would have long mixed feelings. The group's pride was clouded by its eventual break-up and by Balin's jealousy with Grace Slick, the other leading singer. Slick joined the group in the fall of 1966, shortly before the plane recorded its second historical album, "Surrealistic Pillow".
Slick, one of the most charismatic rock singers and performers, has replaced Mr. Balin as the perceived leader, on stage and on the most famous songs of the plane, "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" .
"Whenever I did anything, it was always Grace Slick and the plane and Grace Slick and the Starship," Balin told Relix magazine in 1993. "Even though Was my voice.I even made songs by myself and people come to me saying, "I'm surprised you're doing this song.I always thought it was Grace." for a moment, it hurt my feelings, but I can not do anything about it.
Jorma Kaukonen, a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, said Friday that Balin himself had to report at least in part, adding that the singer had never liked to draw attention to him.
"He was a good guy, he was a nice guy, he just was not openly gregarious," said Kaukonen.
"He was definitely one of the greatest voices of my time," continued Kaukonen. "His intense commitment to song and music has never stopped."
Mr. Balin has been married twice, most recently with Susan Joy Finkelstein, and has had three children.
He was in the show business well before the plane. Born in Cincinnati, Martin Jerel Buchwald, he found himself in the San Francisco Bay Area while his father, a Jewish immigrant from Eastern Europe, was struggling to find work.
Mr. Balin was a passionate and artistic child who left the State University of San Francisco to pursue a career in music. He recorded some singles with some of Phil Spector's session musicians in the early 1960s before joining the folk band The Town Criers. Meanwhile, he changed his last name to Balin.
Like many of his peers, he switched to electronic music after seeing The Beatles' 1964 film "A Hard Day's Night". In the club scene, he brought singer-guitarist-singer Paul Kantner, singer Signe Anderson guitarist Kaukonen, bassist Jack Casady and drummer Skip Spence, a novice, did the job because he was supposed to look like a rock star. (Spence would leave after the first album and would be replaced by Spencer Dryden). The name Jefferson Airplane, proposed by Kaukonen, was based in part on bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson.
Meanwhile, Mr. Balin and a handful of business partners converted a Fillmore Street pizzeria into a Matrix, which opened in August 1965. A year later, the band signed with RCA Records and released the album folk-rock "The Jefferson Airplane takes off, for which Mr. Balin wrote or co-wrote eight songs. The plane, very early sensitized to the counter-culture, took out buttons and bumper stickers on which was written: THE PLANE OF JEFFERSON LOVES YOU.
"I remember it was really handsome and beautiful for a year or two," Balin told Relix magazine in 1993. "And then, Time magazine came out and they were interviewing me. I said to the guy, "It's great that you're publishing this beautiful scene here," and he looked me right in the eye and said, "The fastest way to kill him."
Starting with "Surrealistic Pillow", a soundtrack for many during the so-called Summer of Love of 1967, the band's music became more experimental. In albums such as "Blows Against the Empire" and "After Bathing at Baxter's", Kantner was the main composer (and finally Slick's boyfriend) and Mr. Balin found himself out of his own band and stage rock in general.
He avoided hard drugs and preferred tight pop songs to long jams. The classic film "Gimme Shelter", centered on the unfortunate Altamont concert from 1969, showed that Mr. Balin was stunned on stage by the Hell's Angels. In the early 1970s, he had left the plane.
In recent years, he has released albums such as "The Greatest Love" and "Good Memories", a retrospective of his songs Airplane / Starship. He has also been reunited on occasion with Casady and Kaukonen and their band Hot Tuna, or with Signe Anderson on stage to perform the Airplane's first single, "It's No Secret".
He has also returned to his folk roots, appearing in clubs as part of an acoustic trio.
"All night, it's me – and if you dig it, it's cool," he told Relix in 2016. "There is no ego. . . Let's go to music, man. That's what I'm doing.
[ad_2]
Source link
