Grace Slick

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Grace Slick, 2008

Grace Slick (* the thirtieth October 1939 as Grace Barnett Wing in Evanston , Illinois ) is an American singer, songwriter, pianist and former model. From 1965 to the early 1990s she sang in rock groups The Great Society , Jefferson Airplane , Jefferson Starship and Starship .

Life

Grace Slick is the daughter of investment banker Ivan W. Wing, a Swedish-born Norwegian, and his wife Virginia, nee Barnett.

She graduated from the renowned Finch College in New York City and briefly studied at the University of Miami . In the early 1960s, she first worked as a photo model . After first experiments in music in the band The Great Society , in which her first husband Gerald "Jerry" Slick and his brother Darby Slick also played, she succeeded Signe Anderson as the female voice of Jefferson Airplane in early 1966. The “dark-haired woman with cold blue eyes” (press release at the time) strengthened her position as one of the first front women in the rock business with her haunting contralto-alto singing (mostly in a duet with Marty Balin ).

Slick is also known for her controversial lyrics, drug experiments, and public role. She once planned to mix Richard Nixon LSD into tea, but was prevented from doing so by agents of the secret service.

Grace Slick, 1977

Slick was married to Gerald "Jerry" Slick, the Great Society drummer . In 1976 she married Skip Johnson (* 1952), a lighting designer at Jefferson Starship. Her only daughter, China Wing Kantner (* 1971), who tried her hand at actress from 1994 to 2001 with little success, she had with Paul Kantner , the guitarist of Jefferson Airplane. The fact that the child was originally given the name “god” (with a lowercase G; “God”) is a metropolitan legend based on a joke Grace Slick made to a nurse shortly after giving birth: The nurse didn't notice that she'd been kidnapped, took the joke at face value and reported the San Francisco Chronicle to legendary columnist Herb Caen, a specialist in gossip, strange anecdotes and chat . In this way, it became the source of a newspaper duck that has been reprinted time and time again, as Grace Slick explained in an interview for the 2003 book Got a Revolution: The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane . The baby is shown on the cover of the LP Sunfighter, which she recorded with Kantner in 1971.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Slick suffered from alcohol problems , which is why she was only represented with one track on several LPs. A European tour by Jefferson Airplane had to be canceled after being too drunk to perform at an open air concert at the Loreley . Her solo records from this period did not sell well.

Slick left Starship in 1988; after her participation in a reunion album by Jefferson Airplane in 1989, she largely withdrew from the public. She has been painting since then and is committed to animal welfare (including PETA ), but continues to work musically.

meaning

Along with Bob Dylan , Joan Baez , Janis Joplin , Jimi Hendrix , Jim Morrison , Nico and the Beatles, Slick was one of the music icons of the 1960s. Her name and her song lyrics are closely related to the hippie culture , drug use ( LSD , hallucinogenic mushrooms , marijuana and others) and the problems of the Vietnam War or the peace movement (see for example the song Volunteers ).

Slick is not only characterized in her lyrics by her aggressive, pacifist and rebellious fight against conservative or inhumane attitudes, which is often controversial in America. In the present, it is increasingly drawing attention to animal welfare through sometimes drastic actions . For example, she has sent her own urine to pharmaceutical companies to demonstrate against the agonizing attitude of mares to obtain estrogen preparations.

music

Slick has released a number of solo albums including Software (1984), Manhole , Dreams, and Welcome to the Wrecking Ball . Songs associated with her name include Somebody to Love and White Rabbit (first with The Great Society, then - much more successfully - with Jefferson Airplane on the album Surrealistic Pillow ) and Bikini Atoll (solo). Singles like Sara , We Built This City and Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now (from the movie Mannequin ) brought Starship several chart successes.

Well known is Grace Slick's appearance with Jefferson Airplane at the Woodstock Festival in 1969.

Discography

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Manhole
  US 127 03/02/1974 (7 weeks)
Dreams
  UK 28 05/31/1980 (6 weeks)
  US 32 05/03/1980 (16 weeks)
Welcome to the Wrecking Ball!
  US 48 03/21/1981 (14 weeks)
Singles
Seasons
  US 95 April 19, 1980 (2 weeks)
Dreams
  UK 50 May 24, 1980 (4 weeks)

Solo albums:

  • Manhole (1973)
  • Dreams (1980)
  • Welcome to the Wrecking Ball! (1981)
  • Software (1984)

with The Great Society :

  • Conspicuous Only in Its Absence (1968)
  • How It Was (1968)
  • Born to Be Burned (1995)

with Jefferson Airplane :

with Jefferson Starship :

  • Dragon Fly (1974)
  • Red Octopus (1975)
  • Spitfire (1976)
  • Earth (1978)
  • Modern Times (1981)
  • Winds of Change (1982)
  • Nuclear Furniture (1984)

with Starship :

  • Knee Deep in the Hoopla (1985)
  • No Protection (1987)

with Paul Kantner :

literature

  • Grace Slick, Andrea Cagan: Somebody to love? A rock and roll memoir . Warner Books Inc., 1998, ISBN 0-446-52302-X .

Web links

Commons : Grace Slick  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ China Kantner , on imdb.com
  2. ↑ China Kantner Biography Trivia (3) , on imdb.com
  3. ^ Paul Kantner, Grace Slick - Sunfighter Pictures , on discogs.com
  4. ^ Barry Graves and Siegfried Schmidt-Joos: The new rock lexicon . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1990, Vol. 2, p. 731.
  5. ↑ a b Chart sources: UK US
personal data
SURNAME Slick, Grace
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wing, Grace Barnett (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Evanston , Illinois