''Red Octopus'' is the second album by American rock band

Jefferson Starship Jefferson Starship is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1974 by a group of musicians including former members of Jefferson Airplane. Between 1974 and 1984, they released eight gold or platinum-selling studio albu ...

, released on Grunt Records in 1975. Certified double platinum by

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/ ...

in 1995, it is the best-selling album by any incarnation of

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 ach ...

and its spin-off groups. The single "

Miracles A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divin ...

" was the highest-charting single any permutation of the band had until

Starship A starship, starcraft, or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between planetary systems. The term is mostly found in science fiction. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 1882 in '' Oahspe: A Ne ...

's "

We Built This City "We Built This City" is a 1985 song by American rock band Starship. It was released as their debut single on their album '' Knee Deep in the Hoopla''. It was written by English musicians Martin Page and Bernie Taupin, who were both living in Lo ...

" a decade later, ultimately peaking at No. 3 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large adverti ...

singles chart A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often in combination. These include rec ...

; the album itself reached No. 1 for four non-consecutive weeks on the ''Billboard'' 200. As with several other albums from the epoch, stereo and

quadraphonic Quadraphonic (or quadrophonic and sometimes quadrasonic) sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of a listening space. The system allows for t ...

mixes of ''Red Octopus'' were released concurrently. Following a guest appearance on the preceding ''Dragon Fly'', Jefferson Airplane founder Marty Balin returned as a fully integrated member of the ensemble. Balin wrote or co-wrote five of the ten tracks on the album, including "Miracles." The group attempted to create a commercialized sound which was a total contrast to their past works, paving the musical direction of their next two albums.

Track listing

Charts

Personnel

* Marty Balin – lead (2, 5, 7, 10) and backing vocals *

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, ...

– lead (1, 4, 6) and backing vocals, piano (4) *

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 ...

– lead (8) and backing vocals, rhythm guitar *

Craig Chaquico Craig Clinton Chaquico (or Chaquiço, ; born September 26, 1954) is an American guitarist, songwriter, and composer. From 1974 to 1990 he was lead guitarist for the rock bands Jefferson Starship and Starship. In 1993, he started a solo career as ...

– lead guitar, backing vocals * Papa John Creach –

electric violin An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument intentionally made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body. It can also refer to a violin fi ...

* David Freiberg – bass (3, 6, 9), organ (2, 8),

ARP synthesizer ARP Instruments, Inc. was a Lexington, Massachusetts manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, founded by Alan Robert Pearlman in 1969. It created a popular and commercially successful range of synthesizers throughout the 1970s before de ...

(4, 10), keyboards (7), backing vocals *

Pete Sears Peter Roy Sears (born 27 May 1948) is an English rock musician. In a career spanning more than six decades, he has been a member of many bands and has moved through a variety of musical genres, from early R&B, psychedelic improvisational rock o ...

– bass (1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10), keyboards (3, 5)

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

(2, 11) and acoustic (6, 8–10) pianos, organ (6, 8, 9),

clavinet The Clavinet is an electrically amplified clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds by a rubber pad striking a point on a tens ...

(6), ARP synthesizer (9), backing vocals * John Barbata – drums, percussion, backing vocals Additional personnel *

Bobbye Hall Bobbye Jean Hall is an American percussionist who has recorded with a variety of rock, soul, blues and jazz artists, and has appeared on 20 songs that reached the top ten in the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Early career, work for Motown and move to ...

– percussion,

conga The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest) ...

s *Irv Cox – saxophone Production *Jefferson Starship – producer *Larry Cox – producer, engineer *Pat Ieraci (Maurice) – production coordinator *Steve Mantoani, Jeffrey Husband – recordists *Paul Dowell – amp consultant *Dave Roberts – string and horn arrangement *Recorded and Mixed at Wally Heiders, San Francisco *Mastered by Kent Duncan, Kendun Recorders, Burbank *Live tracks recorded at Winterland, November 7, 1975 *Bill Thompson – manager *Frank Mulvey – art director *Jim Marshall – liner photograph *Gribbitt! – graphics

Chart positions

Singles

*"Miracles" (August 23, 1975) #3 US ( ''Billboard'' Hot 100) *"Play On Love" (December 13, 1975) #49 US ''Billboard'' Hot 100, #47 US ''Cash Box'' Top 100

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1975 albums Albums recorded at Wally Heider Studios Grunt Records albums Jefferson Starship albums RCA Records albums