Monday, October 01, 2018

Marty Balin 1942-2018

From their debut appearance in NYC -- at the Cafe Au Go Go in legendary Greenwich Village on April 3, 1967-- please enjoy Jefferson Airplane (featuring the great Marty Balin, who co-wrote the song with lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen) and their fabulous "She Has Funny Cars."

The lead-off track from Surrealistic Pillow, which remains one of the great American rock albums of the 60s.



I was at that show, BTW. On a date. With...well, I'm not gonna drag that lovely woman into this.

If I may go off on a brief tangent here -- I had forgotten that Marty already had an attempted Top 40 teen idol career before he got the Airplane together; here's a record he did in 1962. Sounds a little like Gene Pitney, I think.



In any case, I was, and still am, a humongous Airplane fan; my first serious band might as well have been an Airplane tribute act, as you can see by our performance in this 1969 student film. (We enter approximately two minutes in).



I got to meet Balin once, in 1975. RCA Records flew me out to San Francisco when Jefferson Starship (not Starship -- this is when they were still good) were in the studio recording Red Octopus. He was kind of a moody, brooding presence, but when I asked him about an old Airplane song they had performed on TV but never released in a studio version, he totally opened up to me. I thought he was a very cool guy.

Still do.

RIP, Marty.

2 comments:

pete said...

Link to Funny Cars not working. Loving the Gene Pitney....

bruce said...

As well as great stuff Marty sang like "Today" one song impressed me was "Share a little joke". It sounded more like a kind of Sartrean Broadway tune. Now this early single shows he had broader singing experience I wasn't aware of, thanks for that. "Today" still kills me, I've collected every version, listened to it hundreds of times. Vale Marty,

To be any more than all I am
Would be a lie
I'm so full of love
I could burst apart
And start to cry