Hot Tuna and Jefferson Airplane - Reunion 1988/03/04 San Francisco, CA (FLAC)

Hot Tuna and Jefferson Airplane Reunion

1988 03 04

The Old Fillmore 

San Francisco CA

 

This is Hot Tuna live at The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA, USA, on the 4th March 1988. Hot Tuna are an American blues rock band formed originally by bassist Jack Casady and guitarist Jorma Kaukonen as a spin off of Jefferson Airplane. They are renowned for playing acoustic and electric versions of original and traditional blues songs.

There is a strong likelihood that this concert that bought Paul Kantner and Grace Slick back on the stage together helped the Jefferson Airplane reunion tour and record in 1989 to come about.

Paul Kantner opens this show with an interesting observation: "Ah, the late show here. It used to be the young kids would always come to the late show to get home in time for curfew and the old folks would stay for the late show. Now all the old folks come to the early show and the young kids stay late..." The year was 1988, and for the San Francisco music scene, it seemed everything that goes around, comes around again.

The legendary Fillmore Auditorium was back in business, and playing on stage was the famed acoustic duo of Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady, better known as acoustic Hot Tuna. The duo, which formed in 1970 as a side project featuring two of the six members of the Jefferson Airplane, eventually added Airplane drummer Johnny Barbata and violinist Papa John Creach to become Electric Hot Tuna. But on this night, it was billed as back to the original two man, acoustic lineup for an evening of old time blues and country blues standards. Paul Kantner had other ideas!

 

Hot Tuna discography [1970-2011]

Hot Tuna is an American blues-rock band formed by bassist Jack Casady and guitarist Jorma Kaukonen as a spin-off of Jefferson Airplane. It plays acoustic and electric versions of original and traditional blues songs.

Hot Tuna began during a hiatus in Jefferson Airplane's touring schedule in early 1969 while Grace Slick was undergoing recovery from throat node surgery that had left her unable to perform. Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Paul Kantner, and new drummer Joey Covington played several shows around San Francisco including the Airplane's original club, The Matrix before Jefferson Airplane returned to performing in April to support the album Volunteers. Although Covington had been hired as Jefferson Airplane's drummer, Spencer Dryden continued to perform with the Airplane and Covington was only called when needed. Their early repertoire was derived mainly from Airplane material that Jorma played and covers of American country blues artists such as Rev. Gary Davis, Jelly Roll Morton, Bo Carter and Arthur Blake (Blind Blake). In addition to these shows, Jack & Jorma would play as a duo with Jorma on acoustic guitar. In September, 1969, the week of concerts performed at New Orleans House in Berkeley was recorded and released as a live album in 1970, Hot Tuna. This album is affectionately known by Tunaphiles as the "breaking glass album", because of the sound of breaking beer glasses during the recording of "Uncle Sam Blues". Jorma's brother Peter Kaukonen soon replaced Paul on rhythm guitar and Marty Balin joined on vocals for the electric songs. Starting in October 1969, Hot Tuna would perform as opening act to Jefferson Airplane with a combination of both electric and acoustic sets, giving Kaukonen and Casady an opportunity to explore their love of traditional blues music, and also giving Balin and Covington a chance to explore soul-rock compositions. In 1970, RCA paid for the band to go to Jamaica to record their next album, now with Paul Ziegler taking over Peter's spot, but the album was never finished. Papa John Creach was brought in to the band in late 1970 (Creach also joined Jefferson Airplane at the same time) and Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna finished their co-tour in November 1970 with shows at the Fillmore East.