Paul Kantner
Paul Lorin Kantner[1] (March 17, 1941 – January 28, 2016) was an American rock musician. He is best known as the co-founder, rhythm guitarist, and a secondary vocalist of Jefferson Airplane, a leading psychedelic rock band of the counterculture era. He continued these roles as a member of Jefferson Starship, Jefferson Airplane's successor band.
Paul Kantner
Paul Lorin Kantner
March 17, 1941
San Francisco, California, U.S.
January 28, 2016 (aged 74)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Musician
- Guitar
- vocals
1964–2016
Jefferson Airplane formed in 1965 when Kantner met Marty Balin. Kantner eventually became the leader of the group and led it through its highly successful late-1960s period. In 1970, while still active with Jefferson Airplane, Kantner and several Bay Area musicians recorded the album Blows Against the Empire, which was co-credited to both Paul Kantner and "Jefferson Starship".
Jefferson Airplane continued to record and perform until 1973. Kantner revived the Jefferson Starship name in 1974 and continued to record and perform with them through 1984. He later led a reformed Jefferson Starship from 1992 until his death in 2016. Kantner had the longest continuous membership with the band, with 19 years in the original run of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship and 24 years in the revived Jefferson Starship. At times, he was the only founding Jefferson Airplane member to remain in Jefferson Starship.[2] He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Jefferson Airplane in 1996.
Early life[edit]
Kantner was born on March 17, 1941, in San Francisco, California,[1] the son of Cora Lee (Fortier) and Paul Schell Kantner. Kantner had a half-brother and a half-sister by his father's first marriage, both much older than he. His father was of German descent, and his mother was of French and German ancestry.[3] His mother died when he was eight years old, and Kantner remembered that he was not allowed to attend her funeral; his father sent him to the circus instead.[2]
After his mother's death, his father, who was a traveling salesman, sent young Kantner to Catholic military boarding school. At the age of eight or nine, in the school's library, he read his first science fiction book, finding an escape by immersing himself in science fiction and music from then on.[2][4][5] As a teenager he went into total revolt against all forms of authority, and he decided to become a protest folk singer in the manner of his musical hero, Pete Seeger.[5]
After graduating from Saint Mary's College High School, he attended the University of Santa Clara (where he first befriended classmate Jorma Kaukonen) and San Jose State College (now San José State University), completing three years of coursework before dropping out to enter the music scene.[2][6] For a while, he shared a communal house in Venice, Los Angeles with several other folk singers who would subsequently transition to rock, including David Crosby and David Freiberg.
Death[edit]
Kantner died in San Francisco at the age of 74 on January 28, 2016, from multiple organ failure and septic shock after he suffered a heart attack days earlier.[1] Shortly after Kantner's death, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart called Kantner the band's backbone and said Kantner should have received the kind of credit that Slick, Casady and Kaukonen received.[51] Coincidentally, he died on the same day as Airplane co-founder Signe Toly Anderson.
Personal life[edit]
Kantner had three children: sons Gareth (a restaurateur) and Alexander (a musician who sometimes played with Jefferson Starship and now a high school English teacher), and daughter China (a former MTV VJ and actress).[52] After joining the late 1960s San Francisco rock scene's exodus to suburban Marin County by briefly relocating to Bolinas, California in the early 1970s, he decided to return to San Francisco as the Jefferson Starship era dawned, residing for many years in "a beautiful house perched over the blue Pacific in the ritzy Sea Cliff neighborhood."[53] Later in life, he moved to North Beach, where he frequented the original Caffe Trieste.[54]
A lifelong cigarette smoker (with a penchant for unfiltered Camels) throughout his adult life, Kantner prophetically stated in a late-in-life interview, "I'm not going to give up the few things I enjoy. Might as well die of something I like."[55] Identifying as a political anarchist, Kantner advocated the use of entheogens such as LSD for mind expansion and spiritual growth, and was a prominent advocate of the legalization of marijuana, which he regularly consumed for most of his adult life.[4][56] In a 1986 interview, Kantner shared his thoughts about cocaine and alcohol, saying, "Cocaine, particularly, is a bummer. It's a noxious drug that turns people into jerks. And alcohol is probably the worst drug of all. As you get older and accomplish more things in life in general, you realize that drugs don't help, particularly if you abuse them."[57] When Kantner suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 1980, his attending physician at Cedars-Sinai, Stephen Levy, was quick to point out it was not a drug-related issue, saying: "There is zero relationship between Paul's illness and drugs. He doesn't use drugs."[58]
Belying his reputation as a near-teetotaler during the commercial heyday of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, Kantner began to use alcohol more frequently in his later years, with bandmate Jude Gold ultimately characterizing Kantner's vodka intake as an "on-again/off-again love affair."[59] In a 2016 reminiscence, Marty Balin reflected on this period: "It was sad to see. He didn't do anything to take care of his health with all his drinking and everything, smoking cigarettes all the time, pushing himself too much. He asked me to join him for this last go-round. He'd been touring around the world and I talked to him and said, 'You better be careful. Take care of yourself. You've got a grueling schedule.' He just said, 'Don't worry about me. I can do anything. I'm strong as a bull.' He WAS a hard-headed German."[11]
Films and books[edit]
Filmography[edit]
In 2004, a documentary containing 13 Jefferson Airplane performances and bandmember interviews was released on DVD. In 1991, Kantner and Slick appeared and provided commentary in The Doors: Live In Europe 1968. This VHS documentary film explores the experiences of the American rock band The Doors while touring Europe with Jefferson Airplane in 1968. Released on DVD in 2004.