The eighties may have brought her a pile of money, but she will always belong to the sixties. Sixty years ago she stood as a pillar of West Coast counterculture, and it's often forgotten how pioneering she was on a male-dominated rock scene. As the focal point of Jefferson Airplane, she bypassed all the pop conventions of the time placed on women onstage and set against them a contralto voice that was both sensual and commanding. Far Out Magazine ↗
When the hippie dream faded, the band followed guitarist Paul Kantner's direction. Jefferson Airplane played their last show in 1973, and a year later Kantner and Slick launched Jefferson Starship — a name Kantner had first used back in 1970 on his side project Blows Against the Empire. American Songwriter ↗ With each subsequent album they sounded more and more like soft rock. After Kantner's definitive departure in 1984, Slick and Mickey Thomas had to continue, despite lawsuits, under a new name — the third chapter of the "Jefferson lineage." Far Out Magazine ↗
It's this chapter she has a clear opinion about. "I don't care if they use the name. I didn't care for Starship anyway. Like, the ’80s version of Starship was just all… songs were written by other people and ah, God, it was just dumb," she said in 2007. From Woodstock to adult contemporary pop is quite a fall — and We Built This City and Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now were behind it. Far Out Magazine ↗
"We had a lot of number ones, but I don't really care about number ones," she added. "I'd rather do music that's interesting and different and is written by the band, not somebody else."
Illustrative photo: Grace Slick in 1976. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Grace Slick on her own band Starship: "It was just dumb"
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