ay morning coming down // (Scott Johnson).
Jorma Kaukonen was lead guitarist for Jefferson Airplane. He formed Hot Tuna with Jack Casady, a bassist who they had been friends and musical partners since their teens. It was a side venture to pursue other interests. Hot Tuna started as an acoustic blues band with Will Scarlett on the harmonica. Jorma has enjoyed a varied and interesting career in music deep within the American grain. In the 2018 memoir Long: My Life, Music, he tells his story. I was only able to see him live in 2009, but I have been a fan of his for over 50 years. This week, he turns 82. I wanted to post some videos of music that I have enjoyed a lot over the years.
Jorma is smart and funny. He is an encyclopedia for traditional American music and an engaging performer and song songwriter. Jorma was on tour in 2015 to promote his new album . It was released by St. Paul’s Red House Records (now part of Compass Records Group). The disc opens with “Nobody Knows You when You’re Down And Out,” a song Jorma sang in 1964, while Janis Joplin was recording a tape in San Francisco. Jorma’s wife Jorma typed something on the typewriter (below). It’s pretty amazing. He writes that Janis was the first time he met him.
Jefferson Airplane was founded by Jorma. He was present when the Airplane took flight and he also wrote several lesser-known songs that made it onto Airplane albums. “She Has Funny Cars” was the first number on Surrealistic Pill (vocalist Marty balin wrote the lyrics). Although it’s a bit out of date, it still sounds great to me.
“Good Shepherd” is the second song on Volunteers. It was arranged by Kaukonen. He remembers hearing it backstage in 1963 from a pair folk singers. He didn’t know how it came about. “I just wanted it to be played and that’s what i did.” (In his Appendix of lyrics he explains that this is an old-time song. It was gathered from Jimmie Strothers, an aging blind blues player, as ‘The Blood-Strained Benders’ by Alan Lomax & Harold Spivacke for the Library of Congress in 1936.
Jorma also contributed “Turn My Life Down” to Volunteers. Balin did a wonderful vocal. Stephen Stills is playing the Hammond organ. This track is my favorite.
In 1969, Kaukonen and Casady parted ways to form Hot Tuna. Their first album, recorded live at Berkeley, is a classic. The album’s heart consists of blues songs, with updated arrangements and numbers by Reverend Gary Davis (Kaukonen’s first musical idol). One of them is “Death Don’t Have No Mercy”.
The album is completed with the instrumental “Mann’s Fate”, written by Kaukonen. It seems like something is being discussed here. It could be man’s fate. Jack Casady is a great partner on bass. He plays it as a lead guitar. Jorma’s memoir revealed that Jack was the lead guitarist in their first DC teenage group. Jorma played rhythm.
Hot Tuna was electric on First Pull up, Then Pull down and Burgers. Jorma took “True Religion” and adapted it from a traditional spiritual. This music is deep in American grain, as I said. Papa John Creach plays the fiddle, and Sammy Piazza plays the drums.
His memoir was titled Been so Long. This is the First Pull up song.
“Water Song” is another Kaukonen instrument, this one from his Burgers collection. He wrote in his memoir that “A simple sequence of chord changes could move my to tears at any moment.” This is how I feel about this song. It was a great experience to see him perform it live with Jack.
Kaukonen has performed mostly as a duo with Jack Casady but also once as a trio, with Casady and Barry Mittelhoff, and once solo. This song was only performed once in the six to seven times I’ve seen him perform it. It sounded almost familiar when I heard it. It was so easy to sing along to, but I didn’t know where it came from. I was shocked to discover that Jorma is a true music nut when I returned home.
Jimmie Cox wrote the old Bessie Smith song “Nobody Knows you When You’re Down And Out”. It’s almost 100 years old. It’s almost 100 years old. Janis Joplin was backed by Jorma in 1964. He then returned to the subject 50 years later on his In No Hurry CD.
“Hesitation Blues”, one of Reverend Gary Davis’s songs from the first Hot Tuna album, is “Hesitation Blues”. Jorma, Jack and Barry Mittelhoff came through Minnesota in 2009 to perform the song in the studio of Minnesota Public Radio. I met them at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. Ask them if it is right to make blues so beautiful. The music speaks for itself when it is played so lovingly.
