Guitar legend picked to be youth patron

Thankfully, Jack Casady is on hand to prove that particular adage wrong.

Sitting in one of the pristine rehearsal rooms at Youth Arts Jersey, where Jack has recently been made patron, the legendary Jefferson Airplane bassist barely pauses for breath as he recounts his time spent in and around some of the swinging Sixties’ most iconic American bands.

‘Back then, it was all about the music,’ he says.

‘There were no music videos to kill the imagination.

‘It wasn’t about whatever outfit the singer was wearing (although I’m guilty of wearing some pretty nutty outfits over the years).’

Jack’s CV also encompasses several of the Sixties’ most seminal music festivals, including Monterey, Woodstock and Altamont; he is quick, however, to play down the mythical status that often surrounds them.

‘At Woodstock, there were 30,000 people so we knew it was special,’ he says, ‘but certainly there was no feeling that it would come to be seen as so historic.’

Jefferson Airplane played the closing set of the festival’s penultimate day, although ‘we were actually supposed to have played 12 hours earlier but we were delayed because of the weather. It was a nutty situation but a really great event.’

Jack (far right) in Jefferson Airplane

Unsurprisingly, Jack’s memories of Altamont are decidedly less rosy (the ill-fated festival is notorious for the murderous brutality of the security guards, who, somewhat unwisely, had been recruited from the ranks of the Hell’s Angels).

‘It was just the wrong choice of event,’ says Jack, matter-of-factly.

‘The organisers moved it from a great area to some place out in the middle of the desert and we all paid the price.’

Indeed, many were to pay a similar price for the more extreme excesses of the decade, not least Jimi Hendrix, with whom Jack was an occasional acquaintance.

Jack at St James Centre

‘Then one day Jimi came through the door and said, “I’m recording and I need you guys to come and stand in”.’

Thus around 30 of the decade’s most talented musicians (including Steve Winwood) huddled alongside Hendrix and his band in the recording studio. ‘We worked until 7.30 am,’ recalls Jack.

‘We jammed on the song until Jimi’s string broke, then we all hopped in the station wagon and set off to do another gig.’

The song in question was Voodoo Chile, one of Hendrix’s most famous songs and the standout track on his final album, Electric Landlady (‘it’s just a pity they spelt my name wrong on the sleeve,’ laughs Jack).

Despite such awesome achievements, Jack remains most celebrated for Hot Tuna, the blues-rock band he formed at the tail-end of the Sixties alongside guitarist Jorma Kaukonen.

‘Jorma and I go back all the way to when he’d come to my house after school for one of my mom’s roast beef sandwiches,’ smiles Jack.

Aside from a brief period in the late Seventies, Hot Tuna have been a continuous presence in music for over five decades: ‘Jorma says the secret to our success is that we’ve never had a band meeting. With us, it’s never just business, it goes deeper than that, and so there’s more leeway for each other’s personalities.’

Hot Tuna’s longevity is all the more endearing given the group’s fanfare-free origins as a Jefferson Airplane side project.

‘There was a lot of drama in Jefferson,’ says Jack, with characteristic understatement.

‘There were lots of talented people and more good music being created than could fit into a single band.’

Said good music included era-defining singles such as Somebody to Love and White Rabbit and albums such as the classic Surrealistic Pillow.

After Jack and Jorma decided to commit to Hot Tuna full-time, however, the disintegration of Airplane proved inevitable.

‘We decided it was time to move forward,’ says Jack. ‘We wanted to continue as musicians rather than playing the sort of rock ‘n’ roll music you play after you’ve graduated from high school. And time would seem to have born us out.’

It certainly has. To date, Hot Tuna have released more than 20 albums, although by Jack’s own admission the group have always been primarily a live outfit:

‘Last year, we played 82 gigs and spent 134 days on the road. I know because I just did my taxes.’

The pair will shortly embark on a six-gig run in Honolulu (‘It’s tough work but someone’s got to do it’).

Before then, however, Jack will continue working on the renovation of his newly-purchased house in St Martin.

‘We’re pulling panels off the walls and, I’m telling you, there’s logs, horse hair, all kinds of stuff in there,’ he marvels.

‘I don’t know who originally put that house together!’

Despite such teething problems, Jack has nothing but warm words for an Island which, he admits, most Americans don’t even know exists.

‘I tell them I’ve bought a house in Jersey and they automatically think New Jersey,’ he laughs. ‘New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire – you think, gee, can’t we come up with a name of our own?’

Jack initially became acquainted with the Island through his wife, Diana Balfour-Casady, whose late father lived in Jersey until his death.

‘I’ll never forget my first time here in 1999,’ he says. ‘I said, “I’m going for a quick walk”.

‘Five hours later I got back and had fallen in love with Jersey.’

Sadly, Diana died of cancer in 2012. Following her death, Jack commissioned Tom Ribbecke, of Ribbecke Guitars fame, to design and build a bass guitar in her memory.

Christened the Diana Bass, and designed specifically to compliment Jack’s unique playing style, the instrument has locks of Diana’s hair woven into its woodwork.

‘It’s as if Diana is with me every time I play,’ he says. ‘It’s like my friend says, her DNA is in the guitar.’

Jack cradles (and, rather thrillingly, occasionally plays) the Diana Bass throughout the interview, explaining the symbolism of artist Larry Robinson’s colourful artwork that decorates the instrument.

‘They represent mine and Diana’s various alter-egos,’ he says, before pointing to a Tasmanian devil and smiling: ‘I’m sure you can guess who that is! Mind you, Diana always said that I wasn’t a devil, just a fallen angel.’

It was while visiting the Island in February 2014 that Jack was asked by Jersey Arts Trust to become patron of the then unopened Youth Arts Centre: ‘I said, yeah. I think it’s important to have facilities available that enable young people to flesh out their artistic ideas. It’s an incredibly well outfitted place.’

Jack will also be teaching at the centre as and when the opportunity arises, having recently rekindled his love for teaching guitar alongside Jorma in Ohio.

‘I hadn’t taught since I was a teenager, when I used to teach in music stores to earn rent money,’ he says.

A strong believer in arts of all endeavours, Jack maintains that everyone, regardless of their background, has their own personal sound: ‘There is a unique DNA that each of us has, you just need to find your own sound and bring it forth.

Hopefully, those coming here will find their lives becoming enriched with music. Learning the craft is merely the pathway to a revelation about the meaning of everything.’

Born in Washington DC in 1944, and raised by his aviator mother and medic father, Jack first set upon his own pathway as an inquisitive 12-year-old.

‘There was no TV back then, so you’d play for the sheer enjoyment of the music,’ he says. ‘We had a Hammond organ B3 in the house, which I still have back home in the States.’

Jack’s interests lay elsewhere, however, as he discovered after unearthing an old wash-string guitar in the family attic.

‘I’d sneak up and play it,’ he reminisces. ‘I thought I was being discreet and that my parents didn’t know where I was but, of course, your parents know everything, man.’

Almost instantly, Jack realised he’d found his calling in life: ‘I think, even at 12, I knew.

‘My parents didn’t deter me, although they did kind of wish I’d do better at school. I just made sure I got good enough grades that I didn’t get drafted.’

Jack soon became enamoured with the musicians of time, in particular Ray Charles (‘who I never played with, so don’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia’), Jackie Wilson, BB King and Little Richard.

‘I’d jump on a bus and head downtown to a place called Waxi Maxi’s Quality Music,’ he recalls.

‘I was determined to listen to everything I could.’

As Hot Tuna, Jack and Jorma Kaukonen have released more than 20 albums

Before long, Jack was playing at a standard to match that of the classic records to which he was such a fan; by the age of 15 (and with the help of a convincing fake ID) he began playing professionally in local bars and jazz clubs.

‘The early folk scene was taking hold and guys like Bob Dylan were starting to write their own music,’ he says. ‘It was an incredible time.’

Although reluctant to sound like he’s ‘grumping’, Jack says the modern music scene is less enjoyable: ‘It’s not as healthy today.

‘People tend to listen to far more music but a lot less carefully.

‘Back when Jefferson first began, people would play an album a million times until they knew every last note. A lot of listeners today just don’t have the attention span.’

Having said that, he maintains there is still plenty of quality music being made, ‘you’ve just got to search for it.

‘It’s easy to look back with rose-tinted glasses but the truth is you’ve always had to search,’ he said. ‘Back in the 1950s, the sort of music I wanted to hear wasn’t on mainstream radio.

‘It’s always out there if you know where to look.’

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