Watch Jefferson Starship play an acoustic ‘Count On Me’ in 1978
Jefferson Starship had been through quite a transformation by 1978. Most of the core members of the band had been playing with each other for over a decade, starting out as the psychedelic San Francisco pioneers Jefferson Airplane during the hippie movement of the mid-1960s. That lineup of the band more or less permanently splintered when guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady formed Hot Tuna in 1969.
Drummer Spencer Dryden either quit or was fired in early 1970, while singer Marty Balin left the group the following year. By that point, co-founder Paul Kantner was looking to expand beyond the restricted realms of the Airplane. That’s why he and his partner, Airplane vocalist Grace Slick, formed the Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra, a collective of San Francisco musicians centred around Wally Heider Studios.
The Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra comprised anyone who happened to be floating around the scene at the time. Members of the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service, along with David Crosby and Graham Nash, all gained membership at one point. Kantner and Slick’s first post-Airplane project was 1970’s Blows Against the Empire, which was a PERRO album in everything but name. Instead, the band credit took the name of the album’s final track, ‘Starship’, and combined it with the previous band’s first half to create the first edition of Jefferson Starship.
Kantner and Slick would release a couple more albums credited to different names within the PERRO, but by 1974, they decided that it was time to let Jefferson Starship take off. The band’s official debut, 1974’s Dragon Fly, featured a reunion between Kantner and Balin on the song ‘Caroline’. Kantner managed to convince Balin to return to the Jefferson extended universe, and by 1975’s Red Octopus, Balin was officially a member of Jefferson Starship.
Balin’s contributions proved to be the band’s biggest commercial successes, with songs like ‘Miracles’ and ‘For Your Love’ floating around the upper rungs of the Billboard Hot 100. While ‘Miracles’ would be the band’s biggest pop hit, landing at number three, professional songwriter Jesse Barish was responsible for the band’s second biggest hit, 1978’s top ten hit ‘Count On Me’.
Instead of trekking out all the way to England to perform on The Old Grey Whistle Test, Jefferson Airplane decided to stay home and record an acoustic performance of ‘Count On Me’ and send it over to the programme. Balin’s high tenor voice is in peak form, while Slick and former Quicksilver Messenger Service member David Freiberg provide the harmonies behind him. Drummer John Barbata doesn’t get much to do, so he opts to sing some backing vocals as well.
During a show in Germany later that year, Slick went on a drunken rant that caused her to get kicked out of the band. Balin left later that year as well, leaving Starship without a singer. Singer Mickey Thomas was hired, setting the stage for what would eventually evolve into Starship in the mid-1980s.
Check out the acoustic performance of ‘Count On Me’ down below.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter
All the latest Classic Rock content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.