Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Happy birthday to you

April 13, 1944

Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Washington, D.C. Kid

Jack Casady grew up in Washington, DC. He found an old guitar in his parents’ attic.  Jack was 12. The guitar had four stings. For Christmas, his parents gave him a certificate to take guitar lessons.

Jack used money from part-time neighborhood jobs to buy his first electric guitar, a ’58 Fender Telecaster, He and his dad built an amp from a kit.

His brother Chick’s high school friend visited one afternoon. The brother’s friend was Jorma Kaukonen. The two boys quickly realized that they shared a love of blues and records (echoes the story of Bob “The Bear” Hite and Alan “Owl” Wilson). They briefly formed The Triumphs.

Kaukonen left for Antioch College (Ohio) and Jack continued playing local gigs. One gig needed a bassist. Jack filled in and realized he loved the instrument.

1964 and Beatlemania struck and left blues-oriented bassists on the sidelines.

Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Jorma calls

Jorma left Antioch. He was out in San Francisco and had joined a band. Jefferson Airplane. Jorma heard Jack played bass he told Jack that the Airplane needed a bassist. Jack laughed at the name, but flew out to San Francisco.

Jorma picked up Jack at the airport in his Sunbeam convertible. Jorma worriedly greeting Jack with a, “You better be able to play.”

Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Artistic Freedom

October 1965. According to Casady, “What was great for me was the opportunity of coming to San Francisco in that environment in the mid ’60s where you had a tremendous number of middle class white kids trying desperately to do anything their parents didn’t. And all these kids were suddenly out there playing instruments, making up songs. And that whole coming together aspect created some different music, most of it not keeping up to professional polish of other areas of the country, but still, people wanted to make their own statement. And so I found myself in this band that I thought was the craziest band I had ever seen.”

The Airplane became one one of the hallmark bands of the era and whose story is too long to include here. Suffice to say, the music of that time would not be the same without them. From a personal viewpoint, their Woodstock performance was one of highlights of my long concert-attending life.

Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Roadie Roomies

While touring, Jack and Jorma were often roommates and between gigs, in a motel room with a broken-TV, they’d play stuff together. Jorma on an acoustic guitar, Jack on an electric base. 

They had never lost their love of the blues and in 1970 they formed their Hot Tuna duo. For Airplane fans used to its psychedelic sounds, Tuna was a revelation.

51 years later, Tuna continues. Here’s a show from November 29, 2019.

Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp

Today Jack Casady regularly joins Jorma at Jorma’s Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp to teach bass.

With the engineers at Epiphone Guitars, Jack has developed the Jack Casady Signature Bass.

According to Casady, “Epiphone and I designed this bass to my exact specifications, certainly a dream come true. I feel we really created a comfortable bass that carries a great, warm tone, and is a lot of fun to play! And it also looks great.”

The  Beginner Guitar HQ site reviewed  what they call Gibson’s little sister the Epiphone Les Paul Special II electric guitar because: “What we need to see is if this is really a Les Paul guitar at a price anyone can pay. Because, instead of a budget Les Paul alternative, this model could be the evidence of too many corners cut.” You can find out here.

Casady has played on dozens of albums. Here is a the AllMusic link to that very long list.

In 1996, Jack Casady was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Jefferson Airplane.

As venues begin to reopen, Hot Tuna is a bit back on the road.

• External link >>> JC’s site
• External link >>> All Music bio
• External link >>> Forbes magazine interview re Fur Peace Ranch

Airplane Tuna Jack Casady

Woodstock Performer Ira Stone

Happy birthday

April 10, 1948

Starting out, we may think our path will be a singular one. Simple. Straightforward.

Looking back we can see that there were many places where we made a choice or Fortune turned us in a direction that led to places we could never have anticipated.

Woodstock Performer Ira Stone

Queens, NY

In the early 1950s, when Ira Stone was a toddler growing up in Queens, NY and playing piano, how could he or anyone have predicted that in 1969 he’d play guitar on a damp stage in upstate New York in front of 400,000 people at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair?

In high school, Ira Stone met Jonny and Jeff Geist. They played guitar and Ira took lessons from Jonny. They had a band called the Fortunes and played behind acts that WMCA-AM’s DJs, the “Good Guys” produced.

Woodstock Performer Ira Stone

The Last Word

Other bands followed, including The Last Word, which released a single called “Hot Summer Days.” 

Woodstock Performer Ira Stone

Leslie West and Bert Sommer

In the mid-60s, Stone lived in Westbury, Long Island and had a band called the Stonehenge Circus.  As happens with most bands, while playing gigs he befriended other musicians. One of those musicians was Leslie West from the Vagrants. It was through that friendship that Stone met Bert Sommer who wrote some songs for the Vagrants.

Taking work from whence it came, Stone became part of The Music Explosion road band. Little did I realize that a band’s members not only have not played on their hit, but even if they had, they might not always be the band you saw at a concert.

Woodstock Performer Ira Stone

Road band

 

The Music Explosion had a “A Little Bit of Soul” hit and occasionally Stone was part of their road band. Later he became part of the Crazy Elephant road band.

In 1969, back in New York, he saw an ad in the Village Voice. Bert Sommer, a star in the play Hair, was looking for a guitar player. Capital Records (think Woodstock Ventures’ Artie Kornfeld) had just released Sommer’s first album and Kornfeld had invited Sommer to play at Woodstock.

Stone replied to the ad. Stone and Sommer hit it off. Stone got the gig.

Woodstock Performer Ira Stone

Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Bert Sommer’s appearance at Woodstock (and thus Ira Stone’s appearance at Woodstock) did not have the impact that others’ appearances had. He was not in the movie, nor on the album. Had either happened future paths might have changed.

Woodstock Performer Ira Stone

Ira Stone’s Woodstock story

But he did have his story to share:

“In 1969 I answered an ad in the Village Voice newspaper. They were looking for a guitar player to work with a Capitol Records recording artist. I had seen Bert around because he wrote a few tunes for the ‘Vagrants’; Leslie West’s band before ‘Mountain’. Leslie and I were friends, played guitar together and hung out back then. Bert met with us (my wife Maxine & I) before he had to go play ‘Woof’ in “HAIR”. We both took our guitars out and started to tune down to open ‘D’ at the exact same time. That was a magic moment because not many guitar players were using an open D tuning at that time. We then played ‘Jennifer’ from his first album. Little did I know that our very first gig would be at the Woodstock Festival and we’d open with that song!”

“We arrived in upstate New York on Thursday and hung out until Friday when we had to get to the festival site. The caravan of cars that we were in got caught in the traffic gridlock so we had to wait in a big field for a helicopter to fly us over the hill to the stage area. Can you imagine waiting in a field with (among others) the Maharishi, Tim Hardin, & Bert ~ not too surreal. None of us realized the scope of this event until the chopper cleared the hillside. Then we were in awe! All we saw were hundreds of thousands of undulating colors. So many people. It was a sight that I will never forget!”

“We went on stage and played a full 10 song set. The eighth song into the set, we did that cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘America’ and got the only standing ovation of the Festival. Looking into Bert’s eyes and hearing the roar of that huge audience… WOW!  We finished our set and were totally blown away. All of us were unaware at that time what this concert would later become!” The spirit of a generation… The Woodstock Generation!”

And regarding wife Max’s role at Woodstock: Maxine was on stage with us but did not sing. She wrote some of the guitar and Hammond parts that I played and was always helping us at the many rehearsals at the the studio and Bert’s apartment! She and I were helicoptered in together after waiting in the field with Tim Hardin, Bert and the Swami!”

Woodstock Performer Ira Stone

Other paths

Ira Stone

Stone continued working with Sommer. One of Stone’s most vivid memories is opening for Poco at Carnegie Hall on February 12, 1971.  He traveled to India for a couple of years performing and writing songs while living in there as well as Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. In 1982, Stone, his wife Maxine, and other formed Max. It stayed together until 1985 after which Ira and Maxine performed together. “We were still playing in many different incarnations. We did some solo gigs, just me and Maxine between 1985 and 1989.“

Woodstock Performer Ira Stone

Stoneband

Since 1995 he, Maxine and others formed and continue to play as Stoneband.

Most of this information was gotten from Ira’s site. The site has lots of pictures, especially of his gear.

Also, if you’re looking to listen to Ira’s Stone Band, check out…

Woodstock Performer Ira Stone