David Freiberg

David Freiberg
Freiberg as a member of Jefferson Starship in 1976.
Background information
Birth name	David Freiberg
Born	(1938-08-24) August 24, 1938 (age 78) Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Genres	Psychedelic rock, folk, progressive rock, acid rock
Instruments	Bass guitar vocals keyboards guitar
Years active	1960s–present
Associated acts	Quicksilver Messenger Service Jefferson Airplane Jefferson Starship

David Freiberg (born August 24, 1938) is an American musician. He has contributed vocals, keyboards, bass guitar, guitar, viola and percussion to Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship.

Classically trained in violin and viola, Freiberg began his career as a moonlighting coffee house folk musician while working for the railroad. For a while he shared a house in Venice, California, with other future folk-rockers David Crosby and Paul Kantner. In the mid-1960s, Freiberg founded Quicksilver Messenger Service with John Cipollina.

Shortly after completing a prison sentence for marijuana possession in 1972, Freiberg joined Jefferson Airplane at the behest of Kantner, replacing Marty Balin for the tour that promoted their final studio album (Long John Silver). He subsequently appeared on Thirty Seconds Over Winterland (1973), a live album culled from the tour. After a long interregnum that forced Freiberg to draw unemployment for several months, the remnants of the band eventually evolved into Jefferson Starship in early 1974. He remained with this group until 1984, departing shortly after the formation of Starship due to creative differences over "We Built This City" with Grace Slick (who, according to longtime manager Bill Thompson, considered Freiberg to be "dead weight") and the atypically outsized role of producer Peter Wolf; during this period, Wolf had effectively superseded Freiberg as the band's principal keyboardist in the studio and select live performances.