Book Excerpt: Jorma Kaukonen & Jack Casady on the Birth of Hot Tuna
Guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady formed the blues rock band Hot Tuna in 1969 while members of Jefferson Airplane. What began as a side project became a band of its own that still performs acoustic and electric sets long after both members left the Airplane.
In this excerpt from the book Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever, Kaukonen and Casady recall how the idea for Hot Tuna was born on the stage of Fillmore East. Known as “The Church of Rock and Roll,” New York’s Fillmore East was run by legendary promoter Bill Graham.
Jorma Kaukonen: Bill was such a force in everybody’s life. His world revolved around him but if you’re in his planetary orbit, it certainly served your purpose as well as long as he liked you. He did like us most of the time. Bill was the most organized, obviously, of the San Francisco promoters. You can talk about Chet Helms of the Family Dog or any of these other people and they were certainly significant but what Bill did had very long legs and outlasted the ’60s by decades.
We had him on our side for much of the time and then he was our manager briefly, so he could guide us. But Bill didn’t play well with others. And one of the things when we parted company with him, he was always trying to move people in an image that he…
