I know these changes must be confusing. In terms of content, this album is almost entirely different from the previous "High Flying Bird" album. That one dealt with the years 1966 to 1967. This one deals with 1962 to 1966. There's only a little overlap, but one of the songs here is the song "High Flying Bird." That's why I've moved the album title and the associated cover art.
With that out of the way, let's get to the music. The band released their first album, "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off," in 1966. But there was a long musical journey getting there, given all the talented people in the band.
I've found some early recordings Marty Balin made that go back to 1962, including a song where he sang lead vocals for the folk music group the Town Criers. There are some more early songs he did both with solo singles and with the Town Criers, but most of them frankly aren't very good so I haven't included them.
I also found a couple of bootleg recordings of Jorma Kaukonen playing solo acoustic in night clubs in 1964. Most of what he did was exactly what he'd play solo and as part of Hot Tuna in later years, such as lots of Reverend Gary Davis tunes. I picked out a couple of the songs I liked the best, including "Good Shepherd," a cover song Jefferson Airplane would record in a very different arrangement in 1969.
Paul Kantner was one of the main singers and songwriters for the band, but I didn't find anything he recorded before joining the band.
Grace Slick only joined Jefferson Airplane after the band's first album, replacing another female vocalist, Signe Anderson. Prior to that, she was in the band the Great Society for about a year. They were surprisingly good in my opinion, and I've already posted a bootleg of one of their concerts on this blog. I decided not to include any of their live material here, but to include the best of their limited studio work. They never put out a studio album, but they did release two singles, plus they recorded some demos. I've included the best of all that, mainly the songs where Slick sang lead vocals.
That leaves six songs on this album that were actually recorded by Jefferson Airplane. They all were done in 1966, mostly as outtakes or B-sides from the "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off" album. Note that I think these Jefferson Airplane songs have Signe Anderson singing the female vocals if there are any, since Slick didn't replace her until towards the end of the year. (I believe the last song, "Kansas City Blues," is from Slick's very first concert with the band in mid-October 1966, but it's pretty much a moot point since there's no female vocals on that particular song.)
This album is something of a mixed bag, since it's got a number of different lead vocalists singing different styles of music over a several year period. But Jefferson Airplane was very much like that in general, so I don't think this sounds that different from their early stuff.
The sound quality is generally excellent. Everything here has been officially released except for the two Jorma Kaukonen solo songs, plus a cover of a Bob Dylan song, "Lay Down Your Weary Tune." That Dylan song probably sounds the worst, but I made some edits to fix some rough parts of the song. The band did a few more cover songs in their early years, such as "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better" by the Byrds and the blues song "Baby What You Want Me to Do." But I didn't include them either due to poor bootleg recordings, or poor performances, or both.
This album is 49 minutes long.
01 I Specialize in Love (Marty Balin)
02 900 Miles (Town Criers with Marty Balin)
03 Pawnshop Blues (Jorma Kaukonen)
04 Good Shepherd (Jorma Kaukonen)
05 Born to Be Burned (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
06 Father Bruce (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
07 Heads Up (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
08 Lay Down Your Weary Tune [Edit] (Jefferson Airplane)
09 Free Advice (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
10 Someone to Love [Somebody to Love] (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
11 Go to Her (Jefferson Airplane)
12 High Flying Bird (Jefferson Airplane)
13 It's Alright (Jefferson Airplane)
14 Runnin' 'Round This World (Jefferson Airplane)
15 Sally Go 'Round the Roses (Grace Slick & the Great Society)
16 Kansas City Blues (Jefferson Airplane)
https://www.upload.ee/files/15906032/JeffersonA_1962-1966_HghFlyingBird_atse.zip.html
I really like the album cover I chose here. In fact, I used to have a poster of it. It's based on a concert poster from the era, but I cropped it and added some words at the bottom.
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