“That’s where the rubber meets the road. You get sharper when you have to play for someone else, not just for yourself …”
Jorma Kaukonen
In spite of the fact that he is a dedicated country blues/folk guitarist and one of the best finger-style pickers in American music, Jorma Kaukonen is probably most well known as being the guitarist of one of the most influential psychedelic rock bands to soar out of San Francisco in the 60’s; Jefferson Airplane and his side project that grew out of the Airplane, Hot Tuna.
Solidly built, short cropped hair, a thin beard outlining his squared jaw and a grin that sports a shiny, metallic tooth, Kaukonen resembles a retired pirate and yet his eyes belie a warmth and passion that continues to grow as he ages.
Born on December 23rd, 1940, Kaukonen, the son of a State Department official, was raised in the Washington D.C. area. Early on Jorma fell hard for the early rock and roll scene finding inspiration in Elvis and Buddy Holly. His first foray into music was when he met up guitar player Jack Casady (the younger brother of a friend). It was the start of a musical collaboration that continues on today.
After graduating high school, Kaukonen headed to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio where he met fellow musician and blues devotee, Ian Buchanan. Buchanan exposed Kaukonen to finger-style and country blues focusing hard on the works of Reverend Gary Davis, Lonnie Johnson and Big Bill Broonzy. As a matter if fact, Buchanan taught blues picking to both Jorma Kaukonen and John Hammond Jr. while they were all students at Antioch. (Buchanan was poised for a career as a bluesman until a serious fall in 1970 left him a paraplegic for the last twelve years of his life. He made the decision that no one would be interested in seeing blues guitar being played by a man in a wheelchair.).
Jorma took advantage of a work-study program that took him to New York City where he found himself in the midst of the swelling folk-blues-bluegrass music scene. Again Kaukonen soaked up the atmosphere and learned from anyone that was willing to teach him a new technique.
After taking a break from college and travelling outside of the United States briefly, Kaukonen left Ohio and moved to California where he returned to classes and earned money teaching guitar. At this time he was also playing guitar behind the first lady of the 60’s blues revival, Janis Joplin, on several gigs.
A banjo-playing friend invited Jorma to join a new band that they were forming. Although he had moved away from rock and roll and had become invested American roots and blues, he accepted the invite and joined up with what would become Jefferson Airplane. The story is that it was Jorma who gave the band their name by parodying certain bluesmen. He initially recommended Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane. Shortened to Jefferson Airplane, the band almost immediately helped shape the sound of rock and roll.
Kaukonen made a call back to D.C. and invited Jack Casady out to San Francisco to play bass in The Airplane. Casady, of course, accepted the invitation. Although there had been a myriad of lineup changes and a few name and style changes, the original Jefferson Airplane line up (including Marty Balin, Paul Katner, Skip Spence, Bob Harvey and Signe Anderson [replaced by the Grace Slick when Anderson quit the band to concentrate on raising her children]) set the psychedelic scene on fire.
More than one rock critic has said that although Slick/Balin/Katners musical vision was considered the driving force for the band, it was the guitar playing of Kaukonen and the bass of Casady that gave the bands its timeless sound. In essence, The Jefferson Airplane provided the shadows to the light and airy hippiness of the Grateful Dead, offering a complete soundtrack to the Haight-Ashbury community and beyond.
Jorma and Jack would often jam together whenever they could even performing acoustic sets within The Airplanes shows. On many nights following Airplane concerts, Kaukonen and Casady would perform together in small clubs to the delight of unsuspecting patrons. It didn’t take long for the duo to make a name for themselves and eventually they formed an official side-project called Hot Tuna. (Originally they wanted to call themselves Hot Sh*t but their record label, RCA, balked at the name forcing them to come up with something a little more marketable).
Despite the success of Jefferson Airplane over their first 5 years, Jorma and Jack felt it had come time to move forward. They left Airplane for good in 1972 and focused solely on Hot Tuna. In their early days as a full-fledged band, members of Jefferson Airplane would sit in with Jorma and Jack, including Marty Balin and drummers Spencer Dryden and Joey Covington. The band added violinist Papa John Creach (who was also playing with The Airplane) who added a sense of blues authenticity to the group from 1971 to 1973.
Hot Tuna’s first disc that was completely separate from The Jefferson Airplane was 1974’s The Phosphorescent Rat. Despite the fact that commercially none of the bands discs were big sellers, the band insisted on a minimum of two hour concerts which necessitated them being billed as headliners when they toured. As they proceeded through out the 70’s, the band began to move away from their acoustic blues sound – the music became more electric and loud, a move that did not sit all that well with their core group of fans.
They disbanded in 1978.
Kaukonen went onto a solo recording career while dipping occasionally into New Wave when he played with the San Francisco based Vital Parts. Casady also gave a shot in the same genre appearing with SVT. Neither one saw much success in their new avenues and in 1984, they returned to their roots. Casady reunited with Balin and Katner in a group called KBC while Jorma returned to his blues/folks roots releasing two more solo efforts in 1985, Too Hot Too Handle and the live Magic.
In 1983, Kaukonen and Casady did reunite briefly for a few club dates and formed a more permanent reunion in 1986. In 1990 they added Michael Falzarano (a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist), toured heavily and recorded Pair Of Dice Found. In 1992, the reformed Tuna released their live Live At Sweetwater (which featured Maria Muldair, Bob Weir and Pete Sears).
Hot Tuna continues to play the occasional date or two a year
But Jorma keeps himself busy with another project and one that is close to his heart. In 1989, Jorma and his wife Vanessa started the Fur Peace Ranch in Meigs County, Ohio. In Jorma’s words, Fur Peace Ranch is “a ranch that grows guitar players”. Unlike ‘rock and roll fantasy camps’ that crop up from time to time, Fur Peace is a place “where budding and seasoned musicians could immerse themselves for several days, and emerge with renewed inspiration and tangible progress in their music”.
Open to guitar players of all skill levels, Fur Peace Ranch hosts instructions by Jorma and a rotating group of world-class musicians as diverse as David Bromberg, Dar Williams and Tommy Emmanuel. Although the price for three days can be somewhat intimidating, any student would benefit from some time at the ranch.
So between recording, occasional tours and club dates and running and teaching at the ranch, Jorma Kaukonen keeps himself busy sharing his true passions, both playing and teaching.
So it’s easy to see where he gets the warmth in his eyes. It all comes from the heart.
[FONT=Tahoma]"All I can do is be me ... whoever that is". Bob Dylan [/FONT]
