In the dying days of Jefferson Airplane, Paul Kanter released a solo album, Blows Against the Empire (1970), with the help of some of his bandmate buddies. He credited it to Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship though the release pre-dated the actual formation of Jefferson Starship by four years. In 1974, with Airplane over and Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady concentrating on Hot Tuna, Dragon Fly was released as the first fully fledged Jefferson Starship effort.
The series of albums released by the band during the 70s and early 80s were consistent features in the Top 30 of the American Billboard charts, with Red Octopus proving to be their best seller. The line-up remained subject to fluctuation throughout the life of the band, and when Kantner left, the band agreed to drop the Jefferson from their name, morphing into Starship.
Starship took the band into increasingly commercial – and lucrative – territory, but the band members slowly peeled away until, by 1990, Starship disbanded officially.
Though a version of Starship operated as Mickey Thomas’s Starship, the Kantner version of the band was revived in 1992, as Jefferson Starship – The Next Generation. Members from all incarnations of the Jefferson brand participated in this version and within a couple of years, had dropped the unwieldy ‘Next Generation’ moniker. The band continues to tour and record to the present day.
