Surrealistic Pillow [Bonus Tracks]

Performer: Jefferson Airplane
Engineer: Dave Hassinger
Producer: Matthew Katz; Rick Jarrard; Tommy Oliver; Bob Irwin (Reissue)
Distributor: BMG (distributor)

Notes: Jefferson Airplane: Marty Balin, Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen (vocals, guitar); Grace Slick (vocals, piano, organ, recorder); Jack Cassady (guitar, bass); Spencer Dryden (percussion). Recorded at RCA Victor's Music Center Of The World, Hollywood, California. This newly remastered 2003 deluxe edition contains bonus tracks. Jefferson Airplane: Grace Slick (vocals, recorder, piano, organ); Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen, Marty Balin (vocals, guitar); Jack Casady (guitar, bass); Spencer Dryden (percussion). Recorded at RCA Victor's Music Center Of The World, Hollywood, California. Originally released on RCA Victor (3766). Includes liner notes by Jeff Tamarkin and Bill Thompson. Personnel: Marty (vocals, guitar); Spencer Dryden (percussion). Liner Note Authors: Jeff Tamarkin; Bill Thompson. Photographer: Herbert Greene. Arranger: Jorma Kaukonen. From the opening, hard-edged chords of "She Has Funny Cars," it's apparent that SURREALISTIC PILLOW, Jefferson Airplane's sophomore effort, is a far more spiky beast than the band's debut. It became not only San Francisco's soundtrack to the Summer Of Love, but all of America's. It spawned two Top Ten classics ("Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit") and established the Airplane as one of the main pop voices of the cultural revolution. Some of the newfound dynamism can be attributed to personnel changes. Singer-keyboardist Grace Slick, who joined the Airplane following a stint in the mildly successful Great Society, had a unique artistic gleam her predecessor, Signe Anderson, never possessed--both of the aforementioned hits were songs she'd written for her former band. And new drummer Spencer Dryden could make the music shake with heretofore-unheard polyrhythms, or walk a straight line with militaristic precision. SURREALISTIC PILLOW's other strengths lay in the band's boldly diverse sound. Effortlessly gliding from twisted Motown (the electrified "3/5 Of A Mile In 10 Seconds"), to Dylanesque rock (Balin's "Plastic Fantastic Lover") to an acoustic, psychedelic bluegrass instrumental (Kaukonen's "Embryonic Journey"), the Airplane proved themselves able to at once interpret the cultural tide and make it radio-friendly. Until the release of this disc in the summer of 2003, the CD history of Surrealistic Pillow had been a study in confusion and frustration. The original 1980s CD was an abomination, the mid-'90s high-priced audiophile version an improvement (offering both the stereo and mono mixes of the album), the 2000 European reissue a slight improvement over that, and the 2001 remastering a sharper and louder version of the stereo/mono mixes. And then came this 2003 remastering, which skips the mono mixed version of the album but offers superior fidelity on the stereo mix, with better balance and a more solid center (especially for the voices) between the two stereo channels than any prior version. It's still not perfect, betraying some slight distortion, but it hits this listener as at least the equal of the 2001 version, with the added bonus of a quartet of chronologically related single sides: the superb Jorma Kaukonen-authored slow blues "In the Morning" (worth the price of the new disc), featuring John Hammond, (allegedly) Jerry Garcia, and future Steppenwolf keyboard wizard Goldy McJohn; founding member Skip Spence's more folky and spirited "J.P.P. McStep B. Blues" (which would have been a great B-side, but lay in the vaults until 1974's Early Flight); the slashing, guitar-driven rocker "Go to Her" in its harder, more developed second version -- the Paul Kantner co-authored song had been in the band's repertoire from the beginning, and gets its more powerful of two treatments here, with a killer solo verse by Grace Slick and great ensemble singing; and Kaukonen's searing psychedelic rearrangement of Lightnin' Hopkins' "Come Back Baby," a late-winter 1967 track sandwiched midway between this album and the sessions for After Bathing at Baxter's. Also included are the mono single mixes of "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit," which aren't all that special, though they are different from the stereo album mixes. There is also a hidden bonus track appended, after an extended pause, to the latter song -- an instrumental track to Paul Kantner's "D.C.B.A. - 25," included for no apparent reason except to throw listeners a bone from the original multi-track studio tapes. The overall effect is to make Kaukonen stand out a bit more in center stage and, coupled with the very thorough annotation, makes the 2003 version an absolutely essential acquisition. ~ Bruce Eder

Rolling Stone (10/31/02, p.136) - Ranked # 39 in Rolling Stone's "Women in Rock: The 50 Essential Albums" - "...A hard-hitting - yet tuneful - call to arms..." Q (8/99) - Included in Q's "Best Psychedelic Albums of All Time." Q (12/03, p.153) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Their music stands among the psychedelic era's most powerful and enduring..."

One of the quintessential San Francisco psychedelic bands, the Jefferson Airplane brought together interests in acoustic blues, folk, and rock music. Add political topicality and modal improvisations, and you have an inspired, mind-bending sound that could have only sprung forth from the late '60s. In their initial, most beloved phase, they were powered by the powerful dual lead vocals of Grace Slick and Marty Balin and the serpentine guitar of Jorma Kaukonen. They went through a traumatic series of personnel and name changes over the decades (they ventured into commercial AOR in the late '70s and early '80s) but their early work retains its seminal power.

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