Grace Slick (born October 30, 1939) is an American singer, songwriter, artist, and former model, best known as one of the lead singers of the rock groups The Great Society, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship, as well as for her work as a solo artist from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s.
Slick's music career started in 1964 in San Francisco when she and then husband Jerry Slick formed their own band, influenced by The Beatles as well as by a performance by the freshly-formed Jefferson Airplane at The Matrix and who, Slick realized, maintained an impressive revenue in comparison to her earnings as a model while having fun performing. Grace and Jerry Slick and Jerry's brother Darby Slick and other friends named themselves The Great Society after the social reform program of the same name, beginning during the autumn of 1965 and by early 1966 becoming a popular psychedelic act in the Bay area. By the summer of 1966, The Great Society was recording, releasing one single in San Francisco, a precursor to the future Jefferson Airplane success "Somebody to Love", which was written by Darby. Grace provided vocals, guitar, piano and recorder and co-wrote a majority of the band's songs with her brother-in-law.
That autumn Jefferson Airplane's singer Signe Toly Anderson left the band to start a family, and Jack Casady asked Slick to join them. Slick stated that she joined the Airplane because it was run in a professional manner, unlike The Great Society. She took two compositions from The Great Society with her: "White Rabbit", which she is purported to have written in an hour, and "Somebody to Love", both of which went on to become hits and to appear on Rolling Stone's top 500 greatest songs of all time. Though both songs were first performed by The Great Society, their versions of the songs were much different: the Great Society's rendering of "White Rabbit" featured an oboe solo by Slick.
With Slick on board the Airplane began recording new music, and they took on a psychedelic direction from their former folk-rock. By 1967, Surrealistic Pillow and the singles taken from it were great successes, and Jefferson Airplane became one of the most popular bands in the country. Slick earned a position as one of the most prominent female rock musicians of her time. Other songs she recorded with Jefferson Airplane include "Two Heads", "Lather" and "Greasy Heart". In 1968, Slick performed "Crown of Creation" on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in blackface and ended the performance with a Black Panther fist. In an appearance on a 1969 episode of the Dick Cavett Show, she became the first person to say "motherfucker" on live television during a performance of "We Can Be Together" by Jefferson Airplane.
After Jefferson Airplane terminated, Slick – along with other bandmates – formed Jefferson Starship and began a string of solo albums with Manhole, followed by Dreams, Software, and Welcome to the Wrecking Ball. Manhole also featured keyboardist/bassist Pete Sears who later joined the original Jefferson Starship in 1974. Sears and Slick penned several early Jefferson Starship songs together, including "Hyperdrive" and "Play On Love".
source: wikipedia
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