Jefferson Starship rose from the ashes of Jefferson Airplane in 1974. After substantial initial success, things came apart in 1978. Singer Grace Slick was battling alcoholism and eventually asked to leave the group. And singer Marty Balin had been reluctant to tour, and left the group later that year as well.
Mickey Thomas (formerly of the Elvin Bishop Group) was hired to replace the group's lead singers. In 1979, the band issued the album Freedom at Point Zero. It was the first (and only) Jefferson Starship album without either Slick or Balin. But with the hit single "Jane," the album was a big success.
However, I wanted to see what a Jefferson Starship album could have been if Slick and Balin had remained and Thomas had not been hired.
SIDE A
1. Freedom at Point Zero (Climbing Tiger Mountain through the Sky)
2. Hearts
3. Do It the Hard Way
4. Lightning Rose (Carry the Fire)
5. Lydia!
SIDE B
1. Seasons
2. Girl with the Hungry Eyes
3. Atlanta Lady (Something About Your Love)
4. Things to Come
5. Garden of Man
To recreate this album, I removed songs that prominently featured Thomas on lead vocals. I then looked to Slick's and Balin's solo albums for additional material.
Slick released her second solo album Dreams in 1980. From this, I chose three songs (all written by her): "Seasons" (which was released as a single), "Do It the Hard Way" and "Garden of Man." "Seasons" has a kind of "Those Were the Days" type of chorus and certainly adds a bit more dimension to the album. "Do It the Hard Way" is a rock ballad, and "Garden of Man" has a mystical quality.
Balin didn't release his first solo album until 1981, titled simply Balin. The material would have been recorded a little late for a 1979 Jefferson Starship album obviously, but maybe the band would have needed some time to get its act together had both Balin and Slick remained. Despite the fact that Balin had been a fairly prolific songwriter with both Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, he only had one writing credit on this album: "Lydia!" (which he co-wrote), a relatively uptempo pop-rock song. I also included the two songs that were released as singles, "Hearts," a hit at the time; and "Atlanta Lady (Something About Your Love)," a fairly standard ballad. Both were written by Jesse Barrish, who also wrote "Count on Me," a hit song from Jefferson Starship's Earth album, so I figured they were good candidates for this.
The songs I kept from the original Freedom at Point Zero album are ones written by Paul Kantner ("Lightning Rose" was co-written with his and Slick's daughter, China). Besides "Lightning Rose" I also included the title song, "Girl with the Hungry Eyes" and "Things to Come." Kantner obviously likes three-part harmony lead vocals and all the tracks feature this. I think kicking off the album with the title song is an improvement overall. All are more rocking than Slick's or Balin's songs.
I think that this version offers a lot more variety than the actual album -- not just because there are three lead singers, but also because there's just more variety in the songwriting.
Since I'm including the title song, I didn't see a reason for changing the title of the album. And if we're not changing the album title, I didn't see the need to change the album's artwork.
