Jefferson Airplane- Surrealistic Pillow- Grace Slick, the late Marty Balin & Paul Kantner

If one were to attempt to carve in three dimensions the zeitgeist of the Summer of Love in 1967 America, you would have to chisel the Jefferson Airplane’s second album Surrealistic Pillow into any Mt. Rushmore of Rock containing three other  classics of the time. While The Doors  debut and Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band showed us where rock was heading, and Are You Experienced  by Jimi Hendrix Experience seemed positively from some future dimension, Surrealistic Pillow by the Jefferson Airplane had LSD-inspired songs and sounds unapologetically butted up next to breezy vocal singalongs, clearly influenced by the hit hootenany pop style of the Mamas and the Papas. It is that anachronistic Jekyll-and-Hyde crazy quilt that makes Surrealistic Pillow (Rolling Stone magazine latest Top 500 All Time list #471) a truly more representative snapshot, possibly, than any recording of its rapidly changing time.

Jefferson Airplane co-founder singer/songwriter Marty Balin (who passed away 2018), beautiful but ballsy singer Grace Slick, and rhythm guitarist/singer/songwriter Paul Kantner who died in 2016, all joined me in this classic rock interview for the essential landmark recording Surrealistic Pillow by the Jefferson Airplane, released February 1967. – Redbeard