Album Reviews

If you are too young to remember but want to experience the turmoil and dread that marked the end of the tumultuous 1960's and you want to view it through west coast music that veers from bucolic to anarchistic, from sublime to self-indulgent with a force and power rarely heard in today's noodling rock, here it is.

Volunteers was the final Jefferson Airplane album featuring the "classic" lineup of volcanic vocalist Grace Slick, lead wah-wah drenched guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, seismic bassist Jack Casady, jazz drummer Spencer Dryden (he replaced Skip Spence who went on to form Moby Grape), rhythm guitarist/ vocalist Paul Kantner and soulful balladeer Marty Balin. Nicky Hopkins adds his distinctive, propulsive keyboards, Stephen Stills add a juicy Hammond organ and Jerry Garcia sit in on pedal steel.

You have to put up with some claims that raised eyebrows, hackles and laughs back then and now. These are middle class musicians expressing the feelings of the era's youth, but they were indulging themselves thinking they were seen as "outlaws in the eyes of America" or "forces of chaos and anarchy" and the album ending call for revolution fell flat then and still does now, but none of that matters because in the between "up against the wall motherfuckers (replaced by 'fred' in the lyric sheet)" and the calls to "tear down the walls" and the revolutionary changing of the generational guard of "Volunteers" are songs sublime and powerful, forbidding and inspirational that for many resonate today with the full faith and credit of stubborn resistance.

Is the apocalyptic "Wooden Ships" any less relevant today than it was during the cold war era (answer: "no")? This is the definitive "Wooden Ships". The traditional and solemn "Good Shepherd" and the humorous escapism of "The Farm" provide a respite from the turmoil and darkness of Grace Slick's masterpiece "Hey Frederick", perhaps inspired by "Helter Skelter" that expresses the #metoo movement fifty years in advance. There's delicate beauty in Kaukonen's "Turn My Life Down" and Bolero drama in the eco-friendly/it takes a village "Eskimo Blue Day". And there's Spencer Dryden's band breakup shit kicking Bakersfield sound influenced "A Song For All Seasons" that presaged by three years "Sweet Virginia".

So much to chew upon today from an almost 50 year old album that hasn't lost a molecule of incendiary upheaval all captured using 16 tracks for one of the first times on a rock record, produced by the great Al Schmitt and engineered by Rich Schmitt, who I assume is/was his son and recorded at Wally Heider's state of the art San Francisco studio.

No wonder this record's been reissued more than few times. Speakers Corner did it, mastered in Germany and Pure Pleasure did it mastered at AIR by Ray Staff. This one though using the original tape now owned by Sony/BMG is easily best and better than the orange label original. The recording's bass power and dynamic slam were too much for young peoples' turntables of the day, but here at 45rpm you get it all from the visceral bottom end growl of Jack Casady's bass to Jorma's wet, juicy wah-wah uncommonly well-recorded, mixed and here mastered for that or this time. If your system's bottom end is at all soft, and uncontrolled this might sound muddy but if all is good below and extended and clean on top, you can crank it up and expect a rocking great time.

Add the absurdist cover and inner sleeve artwork that too resonates today and you have a "classic rock" album that's as powerful and relevant today as it was in 1969 sounding better than ever.