More Jefferson Airplane

Reviews and Commentaries for The Jefferson Airplane

This original RCA Orange Label pressing boasts dramatically better sound than most pressings – this is a very good way to hear this notoriously problematical album. Featuring a host of stellar guest musicians, including Jerry Garcia, David Crosby, and Stephen Stills.

This will never be an audiophile Demo Disc, but the good copies sound much more “right” than most, and that is about the best one can hope for with Volunteers. We rarely do shootouts for the album because finding good sound and quiet surfaces is just too hard these days, what with every vintage pressing now being suddenly collectible according to every record store owner in Los Angeles.

What to Listen For (WTLF)

Here are some of the things we specifically listen for in a Psych Folk Rock record (whatever that is!).

Our hottest Hot Stamper copies are simply doing more of these things better than the other copies we played in our shootout.

The best copies have:

• Greater immediacy in the vocals (most copies are veiled and distant to some degree);
• Natural tonal balance (many copies are at least slightly brighter or darker than ideal; those with the right balance are the exception, not the rule);
• Good solid weight (so the bass sounds full and powerful);
• Spaciousness (the best copies have wonderful studio ambience and space);
• Tubey Magic, without which you might as well be playing a CD;
• And last but not least, transparency, the quality of being able to see into the studio, where there is plenty of musical information to be revealed in this sometimes simple, sometimes complex and sophisticated recording. 

What amazing sides such as these have to offer is not hard to hear:

• The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
• The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1969
• Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
• Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments (and effects!) having the correct timbre
• Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is, of course, the only way to hear all of the above.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

We Can Be Together
Good Shepherd
The Farm
Hey Fredrick

Side Two

Turn My Life Down
Wooden Ships
Eskimo Blue Day
A Song For All Seasons
Meadowlands
Volunteers

Allmusic 4 Star Review

Controversial at the time, delayed because of fights with the record company over lyrical content and the original title (Volunteers of America), Volunteers was a powerful release that neatly closed out and wrapped up the ’60s.

Here, the Jefferson Airplane presents itself in full revolutionary rhetoric, issuing a call to “tear down the walls” and “get it on together.” “We Can Be Together” and “Volunteers” bookend the album, offering musical variations on the same chord progression and lyrical variations on the same theme. Between these politically charged rock anthems, the band offers a mix of words and music that reflect the competing ideals of simplicity and getting “back to the earth,” and overthrowing greed and exploitation through political activism, adding a healthy dollop of psychedelic sci-fi for texture.

The musical arrangements here are quite potent. Nicky Hopkins’ distinctive piano highlights a number of tracks, and Kaukonen’s razor-toned lead guitar is the recording’s unifying force, blazing through the mix, giving the album its distinctive sound. Although the political bent of the lyrics may seem dated to some, listening to Volunteers is like opening a time capsule on the end of an era, a time when young people still believed music had the power to change the world.