Jefferson Starship

Jefferson Starship
Jefferson Starship in 2014 - l to r: Chris Smith, David Freiberg, Cathy Richardson, Paul Kantner, Donny Baldwin, Jude Gold
Background information
Origin	San Francisco, California, United States
Genres	Rock, hard rock, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, soft rock
Years active	1970; 1974–1984, 1992–present
Labels	RCA, Grunt, Epic
Associated acts	Jefferson Airplane, KBC Band, Starship, Moonalice, Hot Tuna, Quicksilver Messenger Service
Website	www.jeffersonstarship.net
Members	David Freiberg Donny Baldwin Chris Smith Jude Gold Cathy Richardson Rachel Rose
Past members	See: List of Jefferson Starship members

Jefferson Starship is an American rock band formed in the early 1970s by several members of the former Jefferson Airplane. The band has undergone several major changes in personnel and genres through the years while retaining the same Jefferson Starship name. It is not to be confused with Starship, a spin-off of the group featuring former co-lead singer Mickey Thomas that also periodically tours.

In 1970, while Jefferson Airplane was on break from touring, singer-guitarist Paul Kantner recorded Blows Against the Empire. This was a concept album featuring an ad hoc group of musicians (centered on Kantner, Grace Slick, Joey Covington, and Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane; Crosby & Nash; and members of Grateful Dead and Santana) credited on the LP as "Paul Kantner & Jefferson Starship", marking the first use of that name. This agglomeration was informally known as the Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra, a moniker later used on a Kantner album in the early 1980s.

On Blows Against the Empire, Kantner and Slick sang about a group of people escaping Earth in a hijacked starship. In 1971, the album was nominated for the prestigious science fiction prize, the Hugo Award, a rare honor for a musical recording. Rolling Stone calls it "a sci-fi song suite that now suffers from concept-album creakiness but at its time boasted an experimental edge". It was while that album was being made that Kantner sealed his love affair with Grace Slick; their daughter China Kantner (who made a name for herself as an MTV veejay in the 1980s) was born shortly thereafter.

Kantner and Slick with the Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra released two follow-up albums: Sunfighter, an environmentalism-tinged album released in 1971 to celebrate China's birth, and 1973's Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun, titled after the nicknames David Crosby had given to the couple. Bassist/keyboardist/vocalist David Freiberg was given equal billing alongside Kantner and Slick on the latter album. A founding member of Quicksilver Messenger Service, Freiberg had known and played with Kantner on the folk circuit in the early 1960s and sang background vocals on Blows Against the Empire. Following a marijuana arrest that resulted in his departure from Quicksilver in 1971, he joined Jefferson Airplane as a vocalist for their final tour, documented on the live Thirty Seconds Over Winterland (1973).