Hot Tuna - Biography
By J Poet
Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady have played folk music all their lives, except for a few years in the ‘60s when they helped found Jefferson Airplane, a band named after a pseudonym one of Kaukonen’s friends gave him back in the 50s - Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane. According to legend, the band name was originally Hot Shit, but RCA wouldn’t put out a record with that name, even in the freewheeling 60s, so they settled on Hot Tuna. In 2008, the two principals celebrated 50 years of music making music together with another tour, looking back on 25 albums and a lifetime of music making. Between tours, Kaukonen and his wife run the Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp, in the Appalachian hills of Ohio, teaching folk and blues guitar to the musicians of tomorrow with the help of a talented staff that includes Jack Casady. Known for their lengthy three hour plus sets, Hot Tuna is a Jam Band progenitor; along with the Grateful Dead they encouraged their fans to tape and trade their concerts, helping to maintain a rabid fan base.
Jorma Kaukonen was born in Washington DC in 1940, Casady in the same town four years later. They met in 1955, during their high school years and began playing together, first at home, then taking any gig they could find, folk, blues, bluegrass, and jazz. Rock’n’roll hadn’t even been invented when the duo started playing. Casady played lead guitar, Kaukonen rhythm guitar, and they formed a close bond. Casady had paying gigs with blues and jazz bands while he was still in high school. One night a bass player failed to show up and Casady was asked to sit in on electric bass. He played bass like a guitar, using finger picking techniques, and blew people away. He fell in love with the instrument and was soon a highly sought after player.
Kaukonen left for college in Antioch, where he discovered the ragtime finger picking of the Rev. Gary Davis. He dropped out and moved to New York to study with Davis and the other folk, blues and bluegrass flocking to New York in the early days of the folk movement. By the early 60s he was in San Francisco where he met Paul Kantner and Marty Balin, who were going to start a folk rock band. Kaukonen signed on and suggested Casady play bass for the new band. The Jefferson Airplane, named after Kaukonen’s pseudonym Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane, took off and became one of the first folk rock, and later psychedelic pop bands.
The Jefferson Airplane might have been enough work for any other musicians, but from the first days of the band, Kaukonen and Jack Casady would get together and play folk, blues and bluegrass tunes on the side. They started playing sets as an acoustic duo in between Jefferson Airplane sets, and signed a deal as Hot Tuna with RCA, the Airplane’s label, in 1969. While still touring with Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna made three albums: Hot Tuna (1970 RCA), recorded live at The New Orleans House in Berkeley CA, First Pull Up, Then Pull Down (1971 RCA), and Burgers (1972 RCA).
In 1972 the broke up for the first time and Hot Tuna became a full time gig known for shows that were between three and six hours long and covering a lot of today’s roots rock genres. The Phosphorescent Rat (1972 RCA). their first post-Airplane set, included Balin, Kantner and Grace Slick. Hot Tuna toured relentlessly until their first hiatus in 1979, adding and subtracting members and moving back and forth between acoustic and electric sets. They released America's Choice (1975 RCA), Yellow Fever (1975 RCA). Hoppkorv (1975 RCA), a more rock oriented album, and Double Dose (1978 RCA), a live two LP set. In 1996 RCA put out Hot Tuna in a Can, a box that included Hot Tuna, First Pull Up, Then Pull Down, Burgers, America's Choice and Hoppkorv.
After splitting up, Kaukonen and Casady stayed in touch, but embarked on other projects. Kaukonen made three solo albums Quah (1978 RCA) and Jorma (1979 RCA) showed off his acoustic picking while Barbecue King (1980 RCA) was a straightforward rock album. In 1984, Hot Tuna started playing selected dates while the Relix label sorted through their early live gigs to release Splashdown (1984 Relix) and Historic Hot Tuna (1985 Relix).
On Pair a Dice Found (1990 Epic) was one of the band’s most rock’n’roll discs, with second guitarist Michael Falzarano adding several compositions and some fine fretwork to the mix. Live gigs were always Hot Tuna’s forte, and Live at Sweetwater (1992 Relix), Live at Sweetwater 2 (1993 Relix), Live in Japan: At Stove's Yokohoma City (1997 Relix) and And Furthermore…(1998 Arista), cut at one of he Dead’s Furthur Festivals, capture the band at their best. In 2009 the band finally released a new Lp, Steady As She Goes.
