''The Worst of Jefferson Airplane'' is the first

compilation album A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several Performing arts#Performers, performers. If by one artist, then generally the tr ...

from the rock band

Jefferson Airplane Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to ac ...

, released in November 1970 as RCA Victor LSP-4459. The "Worst" in the title is ironic as the album features all of Jefferson Airplane's hit

singles Singles are people not in a committed relationship. Singles may also refer to: Film and television * ''Singles'' (miniseries), a 1984 Australian television series * ''Singles'' (1992 film), written and directed by Cameron Crowe * ''Singles'' ...

up to that point. It peaked at #12 on the ''Billboard'' 200 in 1971 and has since gone platinum. (Type "Jefferson Airplane" under Artist.)

Content

In 1970, the band underwent a period of inactivity because of internal personnel conflict and pursuit of individual projects. Drummer

Spencer Dryden Spencer Charles Dryden (April 7, 1938 – January 11, 2005) was an American musician best known as the drummer for Jefferson Airplane and New Riders of the Purple Sage. He also played with Dinosaurs, and the Ashes (later known as the Peanut Butt ...

was ousted from the group,

Marty Balin Martyn Jerel Buchwald (January 30, 1942 – September 27, 2018), known as Marty Balin (), was an American singer, songwriter, and musician best known as the founder/leader and one of the lead singers and songwriters of Jefferson Airplane and ...

found his commitment to the band he had started becoming tenuous,

Grace Slick Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing; October 30, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter, artist, and painter. Slick was a key figure in San Francisco's early psychedelic music scene in the mid-1960s. With a music career spanning four decades, s ...

was pregnant with her

daughter A daughter is a female offspring; a girl or a woman in relation to her parents. Daughterhood is the state of being someone's daughter. The male counterpart is a son. Analogously the name is used in several areas to show relations between groups ...

for a good part of the year,

Paul Kantner Paul Lorin Kantner (March 17, 1941 – January 28, 2016) was an American rock musician. He is best known as the co-founder, rhythm guitarist, and vocalist of Jefferson Airplane, a leading psychedelic rock band of the counterculture era. He cont ...

released his solo album ''

Blows Against the Empire ''Blows Against the Empire'' is a concept album by Paul Kantner, released under the name Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship. It is the first album to use the "Starship" moniker, a name which Kantner and Grace Slick would later use for the band J ...

'', and

Jorma Kaukonen Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen, Jr. (; ; born December 23, 1940) is an American blues, folk, and rock guitarist. Kaukonen performed with Jefferson Airplane and still performs regularly on tour with Hot Tuna, which started as a side project with bassist J ...

and

Jack Casady John William "Jack" Casady (born April 13, 1944) is an American bass guitarist, best known as a member of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna. Jefferson Airplane became the first successful exponent of the San Francisco Sound. Singles including " So ...

busied themselves with their side project,

Hot Tuna Hot Tuna is an American blues rock band formed in 1969 by former Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen (guitarist/vocals) and Jack Casady (bassist). Although it has always been a fluid aggregation, with musicians coming and going over the ...

. With no group project in sight, RCA Records assembled this album centered upon the group's hit singles, with input from the band. "The Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil", "

Crown of Creation ''Crown of Creation'' is the fourth studio album by the San Francisco psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane, and was released by RCA Victor in August 1968. Containing more rock music than previous efforts, the album saw the band continuing t ...

", and "

Volunteers Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

" all made the lower reaches of the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. " Somebody to Love" and "

White Rabbit The White Rabbit is a fictional and anthropomorphic character in Lewis Carroll's 1865 book ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''. He appears at the very beginning of the book, in chapter one, wearing a waistcoat, and muttering "Oh dear! Oh dear! ...

" were the band's only

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or " con ...

hits, reaching #5 and #8 respectively. To ensure a full picture of the group's musical interests, and possibly to ensure solidarity in the publishing income, the band included instrumentals by Dryden and Kaukonen, a

country blues Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

cover arranged by Kaukonen, and Balin's straightforward ballad "Today". This would be the final album featuring what is considered the "classic" line-up of the band, after Slick and Dryden joined, and before Balin and Dryden left. Original LP copies of the album featured

Victor The name Victor or Viktor may refer to: * Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname Arts and entertainment Film * ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film * ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...

"scroll" labels from the late 1920s. The inner sleeve was a reproduction of a 1918 vintage Victor record sleeve. The interior of the gatefold cover featured a large color reproduction of the painting "

His Master's Voice His Master's Voice (HMV) was the name of a major British record label created in 1901 by The Gramophone Co. Ltd. The phrase was coined in the late 1890s from the title of a painting by English artist Francis Barraud, which depicted a Jack Russ ...

", the famous RCA Victor trademark. Later reissues of the LP were housed in a regular, non-gatefold cover and did not include the reproduction of the painting nor the 1918 inner sleeve, but the LP still bore the vintage Victor record labels.

Reissues

On July 29, 1997, RCA reissued a

remaster Remaster refers to changing the quality of the sound or of the image, or both, of previously created recordings, either audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. The terms digital remastering and digitally remastered are also used. Mastering A ...

ed version of ''Worst'' on

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...

. On June 6, 2006, RCA reissued the album again, this time with two bonus tracks which had both been released as singles, "Watch Her Ride" and "Greasy Heart".

Track listing

The tracks for side one and side two listed here are those of the original LP. The cassette version features the same songs, but arranged in a different order.

Charts

Personnel

Jefferson Airplane

–

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...

– vocals,

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

on all tracks except "It's No Secret" and "Blues from an Airplane" *

– vocals, rhythm guitar *

–

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

, vocals *

–

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

on all tracks except "It's No Secret" and "Blues from an Airplane" *

Signe Anderson Signe Toly Anderson ( ; born Signe Toly; September 15, 1941 – January 28, 2016) was an American singer who was one of the founding members of the American rock band Jefferson Airplane. Early life Anderson was born Signe Toly in Seattle, Washi ...

– vocals on "It's No Secret" and "Blues from an Airplane" *

Skip Spence Alexander Lee "Skip" Spence (April 18, 1946 – April 16, 1999) was a Canadian-born American singer, songwriter, and musician. He was co-founder of Moby Grape, and played guitar with them until 1969. In the same year, he released his only s ...

– drums on "It's No Secret" and "Blues from an Airplane"

Additional personnel

* Gary Blackman – nose solo on "Lather" * Gene Twombly – sound effects on "Lather" *

Nicky Hopkins Nicholas Christian "Nicky" Hopkins (24 February 1944 – 6 September 1994) was an English pianist and organist. Hopkins performed on many popular and enduring British and American rock music recordings from the 1960s to the 1990s, most notably ...

– piano on "We Can Be Together" and "Volunteers"

Production and recording details

*''Jefferson Airplane Takes Off'' released September 1966, recorded on 3-tracks *''Surrealistic Pillow'' released February 1967, recorded on 4-tracks *''After Bathing at Baxters'' released November 1967, recorded on 8-tracks *''Crown of Creation'' released September 1968, recorded on 8-tracks *''Bless Its Pointed Little Head'' released February 1969, recorded live on 8-tracks *''Volunteers'' released November 1969, recorded on 16-tracks *

Alton Kelley Alton Kelley (June 17, 1940 – June 1, 2008) was an American artist known for his psychedelic art, in particular his designs for 1960s rock concert posters and album covers. Along with artists Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Victor Moscoso an ...

Wes Wilson Robert Wesley Wilson (July 15, 1937 – January 24, 2020) was an American artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters. Best known for designing posters for Bill Graham of The Fillmore in San Francisco, he invented a style ...

– album design * Jefferson Airplane, Bill Thompson, Maurice – album compilation

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Worst Of Jefferson Airplane, The 1970 greatest hits albums Jefferson Airplane compilation albums RCA Records compilation albums Albums produced by Marty Balin Albums produced by Grace Slick Albums produced by Paul Kantner Albums produced by Jorma Kraukonen Albums produced by Jack Casady Albums produced by Spencer Dryden