Somebody to Love?

August 31, 1998
Rock chanteuse Grace Slick was a sophomore at the University of Miami when, in 1958, a friend from her Bay-area hometown sent her an article about the new San Francisco scene--a world of "marijuana, rock music and strange but pleasantly artistic beatnik behavior." Intrigued, Slick returned home and threw herself into a counterculture that was distinctly at odds with her post-war middle-class upbringing. After playing in a popular local band for a few years, she joined the front ranks of '60s rock icons when she was invited to sing for the already-prominent band Jefferson Airplane, recording hits like "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" that helped to define the kaleidoscopic rock world of the 1960s. Here, Slick unabashedly details her long flirtation with psychedelic drugs; her dalliances with Jim Morrison ("like making love to a floating art form with eyes") and lesser rock luminaries; her many run-ins with the law; and her experiences of marriage and motherhood as her band evolved from rebellious trailblazers into the florid mainstream radio acts Jefferson Starship and Starship. Her present-day dedication to animal-rights causes, visual art and spirituality are also recounted. There are few revelations here, and Slick's penchant for elliptical, hippie-ish pronouncements ("Life, the constantly mutating funeral party") won't win her many new fans. But the appealingly wry good humor she brings to her own life story makes this an engaging trip through two turbulent decades of rock 'n' roll. Photos. Editor, Rich Horgan; agent, Maureen Regan. Audio rights to Warner.

May 1, 1998
Jefferson Airplane's diva offers a tell-all autobiography.

September 1, 1998
The further we get from the '60s, the less portentous their mysteries become. When it came time to pick a title for Jefferson Airplane's third album, Slick reveals, a hanger-on piped up, "Why don't you name this album "After Bathing at Baxter's"?" So the band did. The Airplane was arguably the most important San Francisco rock band at a time when SF carried the cachet that Seattle would in the grunge era. Slick was its centerpiece; in fact, she brought its biggest hits, "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit," with her from her previous band, the Great Society. She was the real acid queen, a fat little kid who became a cultural icon and remained true to the blunt and boisterous image she fashioned. Also covering the Jefferson Starship years--a sad sequel to the Airplane's famous fight--Slick will remind readers of one of the most famous lines she sang: "Everything they think we are, we are." ((Reviewed September 1, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)

August 1, 1998
As lead singer of the Jefferson Airplane, Grace Slick fired the imaginations of a generation. In this frank, often crazy memoir, she does not disappoint those who remember her direct, off-the-wall wisecracking. She provides a highly entertaining insider's report of many of the psychedelic era's major events, including Woodstock and Altamont, seen through the proverbial haze of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll, as well as her liaisons with Jim Morrison and various members of her band. Eventually, the years of extravagant living and self-abuse began to take their toll. After three DUI arrests and periods of drug rehabilitation, she now lives in Malibu and is active in animal rights causes. The era of free love has never been better chronicled. Slick's appealingly blunt and funny narrative nicely complements Barbara Rowes's Grace Slick: The Biography (LJ 2/15/80). Recommended for public libraries and all music/pop culture collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/98.]--Richard Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno