A State of Grace

As an aficionado of psychedelic and acid rock in its formative years in the mid to late sixties my favorite female vocalist by far and hands down is the iconic Grace Slick of The Great Society, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and finally a solo artist.  She would eventually transition to be an author and painter.  Endowed with classic beauty and a melodic and yet powerful voice she is rightly called the Queen of Acid Rock.  The first time I heard “White Rabbit” she was like one of the sirens from the Odyssey that pulled me right into the counter-culture music of rebellion set to music.  I have had a crush on her for almost as long as I can remember.  For me, she was catapulted to my attention by the horror of the Rolling Stones film “Gimmie Shelter”  when it was the first time I had seen her and Jefferson Airplane perform.  The group dealing with the festival dynamic of violence that emerged during their set that eventually led to a member of the Hell’s Angels stabbing a man brandishing a pistol during the Stones' set is still burned into my mind.

Though I can’t quote her verbatim, because I simply couldn’t find it, she once said something in an interview that really turned my head and was revealing and showed just how aware she was of her world and her place in it.  To paraphrase it went something like this:  "We were taking drugs and thinking it would lead us to a higher plane of consciousness and awareness that would lead to more creativity when all it did was make us dumb and lazy."  Though I think that was a given to most of us that was the sheen that provided the shimmering glamor of the rock world that came out of England and gestated in San Francisco to what would eventually be the music that would define a generation.  Come October, the month when the redoubtable Ms. Slick was born, I will honor her with a slide show in my sidebar.  Until then here is one of my favorite photos of her at Woodstock on an early Sunday morning August 17^th, 1969.  Enjoy. 

Scherman, Rowland. Jefferson Airplane performing at Woodstock: Grace Slick on stage, with audience in background, August 17, 1969. Rowland Scherman Collection (PH 084). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries