Plus Moby Grape were sensational live.Ī regular slot at Sausalito club The Ark proved a huge draw for San Francisco’s in-crowd.
Between them they could harmonise like The Byrds and tear it up like the Stones, while their three-guitar thump provided the same dizzying thrills as Buffalo Springfield. The five members made for an irresistible combination. Guitarist Jerry Miller had toured with Texan rock’n’roller Bobby Fuller drummer Don Stevenson had played with blues greats Etta James and Big Mama Thornton bassist Bob Mosley possessed a fabulous white-soul voice and there was rootsy guitarist Peter Lewis, whose repertoire spanned folk and country. The group were almost embarrassingly gifted. After Spence turned down an offer to replace Dewey Martin in Buffalo Springfield, he threw in his lot with Katz, and together they hatched plans for a new band: Moby Grape. Jefferson Airplane’s ex-manager, Matthew Katz, had also been drawn to Spence’s magnetic personality. But the Airplane had enough of those people already.” “He wanted to write songs and play guitar. But bassist Jack Casady offers another reason: “Skip was really multi-talented, with a good energy about him,” Casady says. Balin sacked him after he missed a gig, disappearing instead to Mexico with two girls. But by the time it was released in August ’66 Spence was more or less gone. He was aboard for 1966’s debut, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, which included two co-writes with Balin: Blues From An Airplane and Don’t Slip Away. A week later, despite no prior experience, Spence returned as a more than capable drummer. “I just saw him and said: ‘Hey, man, you’re my drummer.’”ĭespite Skip’s assertion that he was a guitarist, Balin handed him a pair of sticks and told him to practise. “Skippy was this beautiful kid, all gold and shining,” Balin told biographer Jeff Tamarkin. Balin, needing a drummer for his new band, Jefferson Airplane (pictured above), caught sight of Spence at the bar. In 1965 he passed an audition for Quicksilver Messenger Service, whose rehearsal space was The Matrix, a San Francisco club owned by Marty Balin. He began playing guitar aged 10, and by his late teens was playing rhythm in an East Bay surf combo called The Topsiders. The free-spirited Skip didn’t seem to have inherited much from his fastidious father, except a love of music. Spence Snr was a wartime bomber pilot, but had also been a singer-songwriter for a time, playing clubs and bars dotted along Route 66. Born on Apin Ontario, Canada, he moved to San Jose in the late 50s when his dad took a job in the aircraft industry. The details of Spence’s early life are vague. Jefferson Airplane in 1965 (Skip Spence far right at rear) (Image credit: Getty Images)
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