Jorma Kaukonen Wows Sold Out Crowd at the West Theater in Duluth

Jorma Kaukonen at the West

Duluth Reader publisher Bob Boone had a dream of renovating the historic West Theater. The challenges were many. In 2019, Boone brought the historic Art Deco theater to life through sheer determination. With months the beginning of our two year pandemic cut the legs out from under the rollout plan. Nevertheless persistence prevailed. The West is a wonderful venue for movies and performances. Thursday evening, Boone was delighted to place the words SOLD OUT on the West's marquis. Jorma Kaukonen was in town.

Bob Boone was delighted to introduce Jorma to the crowd. He began by admitting he did not know who Kaukonen was when he his connection in New York recommended him. The crowd had a better handle on that than Boone realized, many folks coming quite a distance to be here.

Jorma, whom Rolling Stone placed 54th on the list of 100 All-Time Greatest Guitar Players, has a long list of achievements under his belt. A member of the 1996 class of inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he has also been awarded a Grammy. 

Kaukonen's father was in the State Department, so he grew up all over the world before ending up at Antioch College in Ohio where he learned the finger-picking style that showcases his mastery of the guitar. From there he went to San Francisco where he met some folks who persuaded him to join their fledgling rock group. Till then he'd favored acoustic guitar, but was soon seduced by the technology of electric guitars and their capabilities. After recruiting his friend Jack Casady to play bass, he gave the band its name: Jefferson Airplane. Jorma and Jack evidently enjoyed jamming so much that they later went on to form their own band, Hot Tuna. 

The West concert was simple elegance, the sound system superb, the setting intimate. Kaukonen began by letting the audience know there would be an intermission and that there would be some CBD products for sale at that time. 

His presentation was something akin to being in his living room as he played some favorite tunes. Even at 82 his fingers moved with remarkable dexterity. It was apparent he enjoyed being able to bring pleasure to an audience through his music and singing.  The play list included songs like Take My Rocking Chair, Been So Long, Nobody Loves You When You're Down And Out, Hesitation Blues, and Candy Man. 

He wore a red ruby-like ring on his right forefinger that glimmered in the spotlight as he played. His casual attire reflected his current down home residence in the Appalachian foothills near where I went to college. He also wore an aura of contentment and ease.

Late in the second half of the show he delivered two classics from his Airplane days: Good Shepherd (from Volunteers) and Embryonic Journey (from Surrealistic Pillow). An enthusiastic response followed each. His virtuosity at various points in the evening brought ovations and for many the evening brought back memories. 

The songs had many memorable lines. I liked, "The arrow of time goes only one way," a concept conveyed by Robert Frost's poem about paths diverging in a yellow wood, and our occasional tendency to wonder about things that might have been. 

It was indeed a very special evening. 

Keep your lamp burning. 

* * * 

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Class of 1996

David Bowie

Gladys Knight & the Pips 

• William Guest, Gladys Knight, Merald "Bubba" Knight, Edward Patten

Jefferson Airplane 

• Marty Balin, Jack Casady, Spencer Dryden, Paul Kantner, Jorma Kaukonen, Grace Slick

Little Willie John, 

Pink Floyd 

• Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, Richard Wright, 

The Shirelles 

• Doris Kenner-Jackson, Addie Harris, Beverly Lee, Shirley Owens, 

The Velvet Underground 

• John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Lou Reed, Maureen Tucker

Random Recollections: Paul Kantner, R.I.P.

Paul Kantner passed away this week, and with all such passings there are many memories associated. Earlier this month we lost David Bowie, Dallas Taylor (drummer for CSN&Y) and Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, and it should now be apparent that until we ourselves make that final goodbye we of the Boomer generation will be tipping the hat to many others who made an impact on our lives through music, film, prose and other media.

As for me Kantner and the Jefferson Airplane were part of this fabric that formed the musical backdrop over which a portion of my life was played. Their "golden years" were the late Sixties and early Seventies, golden in part because we were young and naive. Birthed from the womb of the San Francisco music scene they were a symbol of counterculture rhetoric and lifestyle, and instrumental in the formation of our notions of acid rock.

I first saw the Jefferson Airplane at Wall Stadium in New Jersey, 1971. The weather was beautiful, the skies blue, the stadium packed. Earlier that spring it was rumored the Airplane would be in Washington D.C. for the anti-war rally on MayDay weekend. They were a no-show, proving that rumors are unreliable, though the Beach Boys performed and Phil Ochs turned out after midnight.

For several years I identified with the messages in my of their songs, including "Lather" (Crown of Creation) and "The Other Side Of This Life," which opens side B of Bless Its Pointy Little Head. Some of the music was escapist, and some clearly tapped into the nerve of youth's confusion and rage against the machine.

The Wall Stadium concert featured many of the songs from their Volunteers album, and introduced the crowd to Papa John Creach, who began playing bars in 1935 Chicago, entertained us with some sizzling electric violin licks. I have many good memories associated with that summer afternoon.

In the early Nineties, while walking around the Douglas County Fair with our kids I heard a band playing "Crown of Creation" in the Superior Speedway. It sounded like the Airplane and stopped me in my tracks, causing me to go check it out, see who was performing. It seemed strange for me for it was indeed them, or a pale reflection of what was left of them. A young dark-haired clone took the place of Grace Slick. Marty Balin had left in the early Seventies around the time Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassidy split to create Hot Tuna. It seemed like there were only fifty or so people in the speedway stands and a couple dozen more on the dirt track where stock cars usually run. Pathetic turnout. I couldn't help feel an emptiness as I recalled the concert twenty years previous, when our ideals were inflamed to believe that love would win and materialism would be overturned to be replaced with a new world.

Drugs and fame knocked off quite a few of the rock heroes whose names were familiar to all of us. Janis, Jimi, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones... Fame casts a harsh spotlight. Those who achieve it aren't always comfortable with what it brings.

As Jim Morrison himself observed, "no one here gets out alive."  It's what we do while we're here that matters. Paul Kantner made music. He tried to deliver a message that he believed was needed: hope. It's something everyone needs, especially when they are young.