from several years ago, Grace’s advice to women trying to break into rock
Jefferson Airplane Grace Slick
Grace Slick
From the Jefferson Airplane site: Grace Slick, to the public mind, is synonymous with Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship in the way that Mick Jagger is synonymous with the Rolling Stones. Ironically, Grace was not an original member of the band, nor was she with Starship at the very end. But Grace’s importance to every phase of the band cannot be underestimated. White Rabbit, which she wrote, helped define not only Jefferson Airplane but also the acid rock era. Her unconventional vocals on Somebody to Love gave the Airplane its biggest hit. As one of the first female rock stars (as opposed to pop singers), Grace helped redefine women’s role in modern music as more than just a sex symbol backed by a band. Of course, with her statuesque beauty and icy blue eyes, Grace had the sex symbol bit down pat as well.
Grace Barnett Wing was born October 30, 1939, in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago, IL. Her father, Ivan, was an investment banker, and her mother, Virginia Barnett Wing, had been an actress and singer in the early ’30s. Her lineage goes back to Norway, where the family name was Vinje.
Jefferson Airplane Grace Slick
“Good morning, people!”
The Great Society
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Starship
Starship
What about Woodstock? From a Rolling Stone magazine article: What did you think when you walked out and saw all those people? It’s always good to see the people. I played a lot of festivals in the summer and it was set up for various kinds of performances and they had spotlights that are bolted in place, and they’re blinding. I wore a white dress with fringe. I packed it in California and I didn’t even think about the weather. I just assumed it would be marvelous. That day [after it rained], I thought, “Christ, I don’t have anything else I can wear — this is it!” So I had to keep my feet out of the mud.
Jefferson Airplane Grace Slick
Since
In a September 2017 Variety magazine interview one of her comments was, “I mostly paint now and I will encourage or not encourage people depending on who I am talking to. But also this is a period of time where I’m sitting back, which is fine. When you are older, generally, you’re a bit quieter. Rock and roll is a young expression — it’s strong, loud, and ironic. There are just things you do when you’re 25 you don’t do when you’re 70 because you look silly.”
What do the four original members of the Ramones (Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy and Joey), Burt Bacharach, Dick Stockton, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Bob Keeshan, aka Captain Kangaroo, Jerry Springer and Peter “Spiderman” Parker all have in common with Leslie West?
Except Peter Parker, aka Spiderman, they all actually attended Forest Hills High School in Queens, NYC.
Mountain Leslie Weinstein West
Leslie Weinstein
Leslie Weinstein became Leslie West after his parents divorced, but talent and luck (always a bit of luck), made Leslie West a household name among rock fans in the late 60s.
While Greenwich Village was pumping out folk musician after folk musician into the 1960’s cultural revolution, West though nearby geographically was light years artistically on “distant” Long Island, NY.
Leslie West was in the Vagrants and the band had minor success. Felix Pappalardi produced some of their recordings. And a side note from Woodstock fan extraordinaire Sharon Watts: …” a teenaged Bert Sommer hung out with the Vagrants and wrote quite a few of their songs, including And When It’s Over, and one performed by Mountain at Woodstock: Beside the Sea. Bert also came up with the name Mountain. He called West “a mountain of a man”, and it stuck.”
Pappalardi produced and played on West’s first album, called Mountain (1969).It was from that album’s name that, in 1969, they formed the band Mountain.
Pappalardi had also produced Cream and some compared Mountain’s sound to theirs. Steve Knight (keyboards) and N.D. Smart (drums) were the other two original members.
Mountain Leslie Weinstein West
Woodstock Music and Art Fair
The band appeared at Woodstock on Saturday night. Their well-received set was neither on the movie soundtrack nor the first movie, but the strength of their sound made West and the band favorites especially among the FM crowd.
Following Woodstock, the band released its first album, Climbing! (February 1970). Nantucket Sleighride followed in January 1971, and Flowers of Evil in November 1971.
In 1972 Pappalardi left the band to do more productions and West, Jack Bruce and Corky Laing (had replaced Smart on drums) formed West, Bruce, and Lang.
Over the decades, versions of Mountain have formed and re-formed, always with West at the center.
Mountain Leslie Weinstein West
Leslie West
Substance abuse and diabetes plagued West, but did not him away from music very long. He lost the bottom half of his right leg to diabetes in 2011.
He told Billboard afterwards, ““I cried a couple fuckin’ times. I look down — ‘Where is it?!’ You still feel the nerves and stuff like that. I had to make a decision — lose my leg or lose my life. What are you gonna do? But I’ll tell you, it’s a good thing it wasn’t one of my arms. Then I’d be really fucked.” [insert gallows humor comment here]
On August 15, 2009 he married Jenni Maurer on stage after Mountain’s performance at the Woodstock 40th anniversary concert at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, located on the site of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Levon Helm was one of the ushers.
In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine rated West as 65/100 among the greatest guitar players. The blurb said in part that, “ On songs like the 1970 hit “Mississippi Queen,” West played roughened blues lines with deceiving facility and an R&B flair, through a black forest of stressed-amp distortion. “
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair made some things famous that had been there in front of us but we weren’t listening.
It was Sunday night about 9 when a sweating exhausted-looking Alvin Lee introduced Ten Year After’s last song of the set: “This is a thing called “I’m Going Home” by…[pause]…helicopter.”
I’m sure the band had already played the song many times that summer. It’s a great example of a song that one might mistake for a cover of and old blues song that Rick Lee shifted into high gear. It isn’t. Lee wrote it and Lee (guitar), Chick Churchill (keyboard), Leo Lyons (bass) and Ric Lee (drums) played it.
Ten Years After Ric Lee
Ric Lee
So who is this guy Ric Lee besides the drummer for Ten Years After? I gathered most of this from the Ten Years After site.
Ric’s first band was as the drummer with the Falcons and from there here joined Ricky Storm and the Stormcats (as opposed to Rory Storm and the Hurricanes .
While a Stormcat, Ric studied drumming with Dave Quickmire who was a drummer with the Jaybirds. The Jaybirds’ guitarist was Alvin Lee. The bassist Leo Lyons.
When Quickmire got married he left the Jaybirds and recommended Lee to replace him. Chick Churchill joined the band first as their road manager and later as their keyboardist.
The Jaybirds backed The Ivy League, a vocal group. The Jaybirds later went solo again and briefly became the Bluesyard before becoming Ten Years After in 1966 in honor of Elvis Presley’s 10 year arrival anniversary.
We were in a chopper with a medic. He told us once we got there not to drink anything that’s not out of a sealed can and not to eat anything unless it’s been cooked. There was an outbreak of hepatitis [no medical records indicate any such outbreak] that could turn into an epidemic if we were not careful. When we landed, there were no drinks, of course, that weren’t opened. I watched the beginning of [Joe] Cocker’s set, which was fantastic, and not long after came the storm. It was a mini-cyclone I think, with very strong winds. The whole stage was live, but they wouldn’t let anybody use it. That festival these days would not get past health and safety. If you look at the film, you’ll see the covering for the stage was really pathetic. The whole thing got soaked. They were also scared that the big speaker towers people were climbing and sitting on were inadequate. The speakers were very heavy. We were incredibly lucky none came down.
Playing after the storm
The band followed Country Joe and the Fish at about 8:15 Sunday night. Well, it was still very damp. I remember we had to start Good Morning Little School Girl four times because the guitars wouldn’t stay in tune. Alvin just would not play out of tune and try to sing to it. That was nerve-wracking because 400,000 or 500,000 people – no one seems to know the exact number — were sitting there wanting us to play. In those days, there were no electronic tuners, so everything was by ear. Leo [Lyons] was tone-deaf, so Alvin had to tune his bass! Once we finally got going, the crowd loved it. What can I say? [for their full set, see Woodstock day 3]
Ten Years After Ric Lee
Side interests
While still in Ten Years After, Ric studied at Berklee School of Music in Boston, with Alan Dawson, then drummer with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Ric also began teaching young enthusiasts privately when at home between touring commitments.
Ten Years After Ric Lee
After Ten Years After
After Ten Years After stopped touring in 1976, Ric ran his own Music Publishing, Management and Record Production company. He continued to study, now tuned percussion at the Guildhall School of Music and Dramaunder Gilbert Webster, percussionist with the BBC Radio Orchestra.
In 1980 for 18 months, Ric joined Stan Webb in Chicken Shack. Chicken Shack toured the UK and Europe many times in this short period and made an album for RCA Records “Roadies’ Concerto”.
Ten Years After re-formed again in 1983 for the Marquee Club’s 25th Anniversary. During this short “rebirth”, Ric managed the group as well as being its drummer.
Between 1984 and 1986, Ric managed several up and coming young acts and continued publishing catalog.
Ten Years After Ric Lee
Ten Years again
Ten Years After re-formed yet again in 1988 and recorded a new album “About Time” in Memphis, Tennessee and spent the next four years touring Europe and the US. In between tours Ric continued to study drum techniques, this time Latin percussion with Trevor Tompkins, Professor of Percussion at the Guildhall and the Royal College of Music.
In 1994, Ric formed The Breakers with an old friend, Ian Ellis and together they wrote and produced MILAN, released in July 1995.
In the middle nineties Lee produced a series of ambient albums, the most successful of which was Spirit of Africa.
Ric worked again with Ten Years After between 1995 and 1999. In 2001 he recorded an album in Nashville.
Ten Years After continues its intermittent existence and Lee is also part of Natural Born Swingers. Here is a link to a reviewin Elmore magazine from September 2017.
And in 2021, Ric Lee, published his autobiography, From Headstocks To Woodstock.
“It was something I’d always wanted to do and I actually started it more than 10 years ago, but kept stopping and starting for various reasons, Then a chance conversation with a friend in Los Angeles persuaded me to get it finished.”
Comprised of 448 pages, the book is available for purchase directly via Lee’s website.
Many happy returns Ric!
Ten Years After Ric Lee
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
