Best JA related studio-albums after/at 1970

[Indian Summer]

You all know that I'm a big fan of the Paul Kantner solo album 'Blows Against The Empire'.
It was not the only JA (related) album that was released after or at 1970.
What are your two personal favorites in that period...you can choose your number one at the poll below.
The Jefferson Starship albums (official) are not included.


Plus; you can explain why that certain albums are your choice.

(p.s.: do you like my signature )

Good luck and peace!!

[Chasin'Destiny]

I want some records from Grace
her solo works, after that some
others from JA.
From a record shop, not ebay.

[lenceel]

i'm partial to baron von tollbooth and manhole. love the manhole theme with grace's beautiful spanish vocals! love baron von tollbooth because jerry garcia plays some groovy leads on it!

[willie]

I don't know any of these albums
I could spend a fortune on records. So many and so little money

[psychhead]

i voted B.A.T.E.

[Steve]

While BATE is a great album, I really like Long John Silver. The title song, Airee & Eat Starch Mom really stand out.

[tontonfranck]

I only know a few the two JA albums...
I'm not even sure that the others came out in France at that time

So let's go for BARK

[willie]

Did you add long John Silver? Apart from the fact it's the only one I'm familiar with. Airee win for me every time

[tontonfranck]

:shock: Did you add long John Silver?

Well, I mayhave made a little mistake with my big fat fingers...

[The Other Side]

Hugo Science Fiction Award w/ a credit inside the album cover for Robert Heinlein, my favorite sci-fi writer. Bought the album in the spring of 73.

I personally think there's no comparison to the others, who pale considerably. The last great Airplane album was Volunteers. When Marty left, it went downhill fast.

Joey Covington, Sammy Piazza, and even Johnny Barbata were not as good as Spencer Dryden. David Freiberg wasn't as good a vocalist as Marty Balin. The band was a bit more filled up with itself, the politics not as thoughtful and a bit more stridently in your face, lacking the subtle humorous touch.

Kantner (if he could be) was more serious than ever. And they had never been bigger stars. Then the light went out altogether with Burgers. Hot Tuna became Jack and Jorma's focus. Bye Bye Airplane.

Blows Against the Empire was, with Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name, the ultimate community albums. I sensed that it really mattered to all the players that they were playing with (not for)their friends.

But more than a social experiment, the music worked. I couldn't relate as well to Bark, though it more than a few awesome moments. By Long John Silver, which I eagerly anticipated, I found the songwriting tiresome. Not so with Blows. An inspired acoustic/electric mix throughout. Jack's bass on "Let's Go Together" is one of his absolute finest. Harvey Brooks did just as well on "Starship", the final cut, which also includes one of Garcia's finest solo that I've EVER heard.

The recording quality was uniformly outstanding throughout, as was the attitude. Hendrix called CSN "western sky music", but these two albums, with (to a lesser extent, but no less great) GARCIA really epitomized it for me.

While I liked Sunfighter and Baron Von Tolbooth & the Chrome Nun, they needed Marty, who needed them. I knew that the moment I heard "Caroline". It was as if an old friend had unexpectedly walked through the door of a good party that instantly became great because of his presence. Still, while better, they needed Jorma and Jack's bite. Pete Sears was a neat musician and, with David Freiberg, interchangable on piano/bass to some extent-though Pete was better at both. However good the Starship was (and I DON'T mean STARSHIP- a pathetic joke) the band was no longer a mirror of the times. That was the Airplane 1966-70, only the Beatles and the Stones could top them then.

But Jack and Jorma, man...love Tuna (Sea Child remains one of my all time favs), but they limited themselves and hurt the other possibilities. Their right to do so, but it remains one of my bigger musical bummers.

[Indian Summer]

Blows Against the Empire was, with Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name, the ultimate community albums. I sensed that it really mattered to all the players that they were playing with (not for)their friends.

Nice contribution....I agree with what you say.
Those albums feel and sound like they are made by a bunch of friends, more then a group of artists.
I can't say the same about Tollbooth and Sunfighter, because I just ordered them and haven't heard them yet.
Well, I recently heard some bits of the debut album of Jerry Garcia (sounds like the same artists are present).
Short after the beginning of the 70s those artists went in different directions and they didn't release more material.
The question is; why?
Did something happen or was the feeling gone away?

[Chasin'Destiny]

Just 2 lines out of 2 songs;

From Bob Dylan;
The times they are a-changin...

From Steve Miller;
Time keeps on slippin' into the future...

Everybody and everything
keeps on changing year after year...

[The Other Side]

Garcia plays everything on his first solo, except for Bill Kruetzman on the drums. The Wheel, Have You Seen the Stars Tonight, Laughing, and The Last Lonely Eagle (first New Riders of the Purple Sage album-NRPS) are the ultimate examples of Garcia's spacey innovations on the pedal steel.

The REAL complementary album to GARCIA is Bob Weir's ACE, which might as well have been a Grateful Dead album as it uses the whole band, and nobody but the band, for the album. Came out about the same time as GARCIA.

Two points I failed to mention, and rarely is by others, is that Grace plays almost all the piano on BLOWS AGAINST THE EMPIRE, and it's perfectly simple-perfectly good. Nothing fancy and everything JUST RIGHT WHERE IT SHOULD BE. Secondly, I mentioned Jack's bass on "Let's Go Together". Same could be said for the next song- "A Child is Coming". UNBELIEVABLE bass.

Too much nose candy by then, which further inflates one's self-importance. They all (except Neil Young, who NEVER lost his perspective)thought they were "golden". Personal disappointments (see Crosby's demise starting with the death of his girlfriend). Next came the big "H" for Crosby and Garcia.[/b]

[psychhead]

Roger Daltrey used to say that in the early 70s they just turned their amps up and the music got louder and louder and more and more violent...........and the end result? Slipknot, hehehehehhehehhehhehehe

Blows Against the Empire was, with Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name, the ultimate community albums. I sensed that it really mattered to all the players that they were playing with (not for)their friends.

Nice contribution....I agree with what you say.
Those albums feel and sound like they are made by a bunch of friends, more then a group of artists.
I can't say the same about Tollbooth and Sunfighter, because I just ordered them and haven't heard them yet.
Well, I recently heard some bits of the debut album of Jerry Garcia (sounds like the same artists are present).
Short after the beginning of the 70s those artists went in different directions and they didn't release more material.
The question is; why?
Did something happen or was the feeling gone away?

[The Other Side]

For me, with the exception of Quadrophenia, and a couple albums by the Kinks in the mid-seventies, it died by 1972. Think about it-

Beatles- grew, matured, and done by 1970 (really 1969) w/ Abby Road.

Stones- Never as good as their peak, Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Get Your Ya-Ya's Out, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street. All OVER THE TOP, and NOTHING since caught the energy and power. Moments, yeah, but from the first track of the first album mentioned to the last track of the last album, they couldn't be touched. Makes me wonder just how important was Brian Jones and, later, Mick Taylor was to them. Ronnie Wood SHOULD have been a perfect complement to Keith, but I question that their guitar styles were too similar and actually NOT complementary.

Small Faces, FACES- What DID happen to Rod Stewart? That band, from Steve Marriot through Stewart ROCKED. Atlantic Crossing spelled the demise of sloppy, gin-ladened english rock. Oh well.

Quicksilver- Nothing approached HAPPY TRAILS

Traffic- Low Spark was the end. Shootout at the Fantasy Factory was a formula repeat of the aforementioned and paled. Gone after that. Nice little solo career but nothing approaching the early power of this brilliant band.

Grateful Dead- Peaked between 1969-1972. Workingman's Dead, American Beauty, Skull and Roses Live, GARCIA, ACE, and Europe 72. Started down w/ Wake of the Flood in 1973.

Santana- First four albums over the top. Good stuff later, but not from end to end.

Steve Miller Band- egotistical fuck who's first five albums were it. Pop revival in the mid-late seventies, but never the same w/o Boz Scaggs on the first two albums. Brave New World and Your Saving Grace were damn good, and #5 just fine, but after that...

J.A.- Peaked between BAXTER'S and VOLUNTEERS. Kantner kept the energy on BLOWS, but down, down, down... The Jefferson Starship were outstanding live through 1978, but tubed when Marty bailed a second time. DRAGONFLY, RED OCTOPUS, SPITFIRE were superb, but not brilliant. EARTH good but not superb. FREEDOM AT POINT ZERO & MODERN TIMES O.K. even w/o Grace. Dismissive after that.
Kantner knew it too.

Clapton- Derek & the Dominoes was IT. Everything before golden-Cream, Blind Faith, first solo (Eric Clapton), Bonnie & Delaney, and Derek & the Dominoes. Kicked junk, fell into the bottle, and consequently I fell asleep listening to 461 Ocean Blvd. I defy anybody to point to any comparable brilliance by him following the Dominoes.

Fleetwood Mac- Mystery to Me. Once Stevie Nicks & Buckingham walked into the studio and they junked the two guitar approach it went to shit.

The Who- Starting with THE WHO BY NUMBERS it unraveled. Died w/ Moon. Townshend's EMPTY GLASS would have made an EXCELLENT Who album, but he chose not. In any case, it would have only been an upblip on a downslide. Otherwise were talking about a smack ridden, alcoholic paedophile who missed his mate-Keith, and knew it.

CSN- Sorry, one album. Two with Deja Vu, but needed Neil to make it work. I DO like 4 Way Street- a lot. Crosby's first solo over the top. Byrds reunion album good-not great. Stills, first two solo albums and Manassas first album. Nash- huhhhh????

Neil Young- NOW here's an interesting dude. Golden through the WHOLE seventies. Lost in the wilderness in the early-mid eighties, found himself again in the late eighties through RAGGED GLORY. Now aging gracefully.

Put a tear in my eye.