Remembering When Grace Slick Joined Jefferson Airplane and Brought Two Huge Hits With Her in 1967

Switching singers is generally a tricky move for bands to make. This is especially true when the band has just established itself as a force to watch. Jefferson Airplane had been able to do just that following their debut album in 1966.

But they had no choice but to make a change when an original singer decided not to continue. The replacement, Grace Slick, filled the gap with aplomb. And she also brought two songs from her former band with her to establish the Airplane on pop radio.

A Slick Change

Considering they’d develop a reputation as a band that would take on many incarnations over their long history, it made sense that Jefferson Airplane, even at the very beginning of their career, endured many lineup changes. That didn’t stop them from becoming leading lights of the San Francisco rock scene in the mid-60s.

Their debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, arrived in 1966 to critical acclaim but very little notice from the pop mainstream. On that record, guitarist Marty Balin took lead vocals on many of the songs. But Signe Toly Anderson also gave the Airplane a multigender angle by singing on a few of the tracks.

Anderson became a mother in May 1966, just a few months before the release of the album. She decided to leave the band, playing her final show in October of that year. The night after, Grace Slick made her debut.

“Rabbit” Redux

Grace Slick had been singing with the band The Great Society when she was contacted by Jefferson Airplane to potentially replace Anderson. The timing was right. Her previous band had struggled to find the same kind of footing as the Airplane despite also hailing from San Francisco.

Slick had written one of The Great Society’s showcase numbers, a song called “White Rabbit”. She wrote the song as a sly commentary on the older generation’s putdown of drug culture. The lyrics reference the drug implications in Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland, all to an ever-intensifying Spanish bolero beat.

In addition, The Great Society had been performing a song called “Somebody To Love”. Band member Darby Slick (Grace’s brother-in-law at the time) wrote it after a breakup with his girlfriend. But the song took on a deeper meaning in the counterculture, where free love was one of the organizing tenets of the entire scene.

Two Warmed-Over Hits

When Grace Slick joined Jefferson Airplane for the making of their 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow, she brought those two songs with her. The Airplane was a bit more accomplished as musicians than the members of The Great Society. They lent power and menace to the songs.

Meanwhile, Slick’s potent, confident performances in the studio ignited the tracks as well. Not only would Jefferson Airplane borrow these songs for the album, but they’d also choose them as singles.

They both took off, landing in the Top 10 in 1967. Surrealistic Pillow became a touchstone for the psychedelic rock movement. And Grace Slick took her spot as one of the 60s most iconic lead singers, in large part thanks to these two songs that she repurposed for her new band.

(Photo by Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)