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Jefferson Airplane was the greatest of the late sixties San Francisco bands, of which there were many (hold your horses and read on, Dead fans). They developed over their brief career a deliberately loose, almost ramshackle sound that was integral to their appeal. It was emblematic of the "San Francisco sound" that they helped create, but no other band of that time and place produced such energetic unpredictability with such tight musicianship, or with such a strong sense of melody, harmony and drama. Sure, the Grateful Dead emerged from the same scene and mastered that tight looseness too, but it took them longer to get good at it, and they never came close to the Airplane on intra-band vocal interplay. The Dead, of course, established a much greater legacy over three decades, but if we're talking San Francisco bands of the Airplane's creative era (roughly 1966-1970), then the Airplane is the champ. Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady were among the very best lead guitar-bass combinations in the rock era (comparable to the fully mature Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh), and no other female rock singer ever equaled Grace Slick. She's in a league of her own, vocally, and she composed some of the most strikingly original songs of the rock era (think White Rabbit, Lather, Greasy Heart, Eskimo Blue Day, Mexico).
This collection, while lacking the remastering of the Airplane's music that occurred in the mid 90s, is still the most comprehensive collection of their best material available to this day. Of course it does not include all their good songs, but it includes all of their very best. And naturally, not all of the material here is equally good, but most of it is very high caliber. So if you love their music, this collection is the only reasonable alternative to buying each of their albums individually. It's debatable whether Jefferson Airplane ever produced a five-star album (I tend to think "Surrealistic Pillow' and "Volunteers" were, but barely). But four of their consecutive albums are worthy of at least four stars (the above two, plus "Crown of Creation" and "After Bathing at Baxter's"). In my scheme of rating, that is a phenomenal output for a band, and since this collection draws richly from all four of these, it seems obvious that Fulton Street should rate 5+ stars.
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Dennis Sheehy
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