We Lose Another One: RIP Paul Kanter of Jefferson Airplane

Kantner, who started as a folk singer, had a mellow baritone voice that blended ideally with the penetrating tenor of the group’s founder, Marty Balin, and the powerful mezzo of Grace Slick, who joined the band after its first album.

The Chronicle reports that Kantner died of multiple organ failure following a heart attack he suffered earlier this week. He had suffered several health problems in recent years, including a heart attack in March.

When Paul Kantner quit the group in 1983, it looked like it might be the end of Jefferson Starship.

He is survived by his three children China, Gareth and Alexander.

“We said what needed to be said”, Kantner told People magazine in 1981. Its members supported various political and social causes, tossed out LSD at concerts and played at both the Monterey and Woodstock festivals.

Kantner was a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Kantner defended his music, claiming that his songs were “violent in terms of violently upsetting what’s going on, not a violence of blowing buildings up”. He continued to play with the band until his death.

With songs like Somebody To Love and Volunteers, the San Francisco group helped pioneer the psychedelic sound. His group sometimes included Balin, as well as David Freiberg of the Quicksilver Messenger Service, another leading Bay Area band from the ’60s. The Airplane morphed into Jefferson Starship a few years later and attracted a broader mainstream audience with such radio-friendly hits as “Miracles”, “With Your Love” and “Count On Me”.

Slick posted a photo of Kantner on her Facebook page Thursday along with a brief tribute: “Rest in peace my friend”.

Kantner rejoined Balin and Slick, who was by then his wife, in 1974 under the name Jefferson Starship.

“The music community has lost a true icon”, the Recording Academy said, calling Kantner “a rock/folk giant and integral part of the 1960s rock scene”.

Kantner is the first of Jefferson Airplane’s founding members to have passed away.

Under his leadership, Jefferson Airplane was an early attraction at Bill Graham’s club in San Francisco, The Fillmore, the epicenter of the hippie music scene that also featured the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and the Doors.