Collector's Item [Live]

Grace Slick, Great Society | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 20, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000024X1
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #65,440 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just my thoughts...., August 23, 2006

By 

Just someone... (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collector's Item (Audio CD)

Grace Slick & the Great Society, a band that deserves a lot more credit than people, Grace included, give it. I found this band completly on accident and... I must say, it was the best mistake I ever made.

I am a fan of Jefferson Airplane, and though, I agree that this band is not as sophicticated as Jefferson Airplane, it is, indeed an important one. After listening, it was clear to see that Jefferson Airplane might not have been what they were without this band. It was deffenatly an experiment, but one that pushed boundaries, something that not too many are brave enough to do. The songs are edgy for it's time and obvioiusly a building block for Grace Slick's later greatness.

This group litterly became one of my favourites over night. It puts me in an indescribable mood that I have yet to feel from any other musical group. Yes, to most they sound mildly amiturish, but, it's their unknowingness and ability to experiment and improvise that truely makes them great. It's basically a must have for anyone who is a serious fan of the '60's San Fransciso musical scene.

51 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Don't quit your day jobs...uh, all except you, Miss Slick.", June 6, 2006

By 

J. H. Minde "Everything I need is right here" (Boca Raton, Florida and Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Collector's Item (Audio CD)

When I was a kid back in the tumultuous Sixties only audiophiles could afford decent sound equipment. The rest of us were reduced to putting the microphones of our cassette recorders up against the speakers of our AM radios if we wanted to record our favorite songs. The resulting tapes always sounded like they'd been recorded in a storm drain, but there was an authenticity to those crummy recordings that no amount of high-tech can ever match. We LOVED those songs, we WANTED those songs, and by God we were gonna HAVE those songs.

Listening to these early Great Society recordings gives me the same feeling. The Great Society has acheived a near-mythic status as the proto-Jefferson Airplane in the collective memory of the San Francisco-Flowers-In-Your-Hair veterans brigade. It is hard to admit that The Great Society was "such a half-assed band," as Grace Slick described it. It's a certainty that there are scores of dusty reel-to-reels of better and more deserving unknown bands of that era hidden in broom closets throughout America.

But The Great Society had two things going for it that no other Frisco bar band of the era could match, those being a repetiore of good songs (and not just "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit" either), and Grace Slick. The raw musicianship of The Great Society puts you in mind of your college roommate who played Bob Dylan tunes all day on his $75 beach guitar. Like him, at least they tried really hard to sound like something. Still, they are utter tyros. Their sincerity is wonderful, and their ability to sample varied phrases from others' songs is effective, but it doesn't make them at all "innovative" or "the first psychedelic band of the era" as other reviewers would have it. If they had been they would have had their own fifteen minutes of fame and not been a mere footnote to the Airplane. Darby Slick, the band's second most talented musician/composer, vanished from the commercial music scene to reemerge years later after studying music in India. Tentative though sloppy elements of Indian ragas do pepper The Great Society's songs, predating even George Harrison's experiments with The Beatles, but they are the attempts of a dedicated amateur. In the intervening decades Darby developed his talent, and did invent "the Slick," a unique type of fretless guitar. As a matter of fact, Jerry, Darby and Grace Slick were inspired to form the band only after seeing the Jefferson Airplane perform live at the Matrix where the tapes that make up this disc were recorded. The Airplane essentially created and then discovered them. Shortly thereafter, the Airplane shanghaied Grace. Yes, imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but that doesn't mean your favorite band won't steal your lead singer.

Grace both overwhelms and uplifts her woefully untalented bandmates. Her singing is like a blast of raw power that completely swamps the reedy background notes of The Great Society. Amazingly, that voice alone manages to move The Great Society from their garage to your cousin's wedding. It is also, before years of alcohol, cigarettes, drug abuse, and overuse, clear as a bell, smoother than milk, and mesmerizingly erotic. Hearing Grace on this disc left no question as to why the Airplane had to have her.

The songs themselves are certainly deserving of some serious attention, whether covers or originals, both in choice or composition. "Sally Go Round The Roses" has a disturbing and hypnotic undertone. "Father Bruce" is a topical pop-rocker celebrating the immortal Lenny. Grace's cover of "Nature Boy" shows she can easily handle a true standard even with truly substandard backing. And of course, "Somebody To Love" (written by Darby) and "White Rabbit" (written by Grace) became the best-known Summer of Love classics. "Somebody To Love" sounds less dynamic in the hands of The Great Society, but the original "White Rabbit" has a less structured, more improvisational, and trippier feel to it than the Airplane's version. However, just because they are the original versions doesn't mean that they are necessarily "better" versions; but they are different. Given what the Airplane did with them, it would be interesting to see what another band might do with the rest of The Great Society's playlist.

THE GREAT SOCIETY is a curio recording, but one that's indispensable if you want to feel the experience of the earliest days of Acid Rock; and well worth it if you want to experience Grace Slick at her purest.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History in the making..., January 30, 2006

By 

nicjaytee (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collector's Item (Audio CD)

Reviewing this album under normal criteria is difficult. Recorded live on what must have been some fairly rudimentary equipment in San Francisco's Matrix Club in 1966 the sound quality is much better than you could reasonably expect, but still pretty basic. And the group? Well they can certainly play but their sound is closer to a highly competent, left field "garage" band than the sophisticated musical interactions of Jefferson Airplane which, of course, with the exception of Grace Slick, they're not. And the songs? Well, here's where it gets more interesting for in amongst a lot of fairly mediocre stuff there are several excellent and insidiously unforgettable workouts, in particular "Arbitration", "Grimly Forming" & "Sally Go Round the Roses", all of which have a driving power that's up there with the best from mid 60's San Francisco.

So, star rating so far?... probably three. But that's not really what's going on here. First off this is one of the very few recordings of "hippie" music at a time when it was at its most determinedly innovative. Listen to some of the rudimentary but creatively wonderful guitar solos & arrangements and you're plugging into something quite unique... a live recording of a band that's pushing the boundaries out into uncharted areas. And then there's Grace Slick herself, stamping her vocal authority over it all and pushing the music even further out through her still unsophisticated but soaring range that makes you realise why San Francisco's best group wanted her out front. Plus, if that's not enough, you get her very different and intensely delivered original versions of the two "killer" Airplane songs - "White Rabbit" & "Somebody to Love" - that were to catapult them and her to international fame.

This is, quite simply, history in the making captured, like very few albums before or since, in all its raw, flawed and intense glory. For anyone seriously interested in the era or the roots of San Francisco's catalytic impact on 1960's music it's not only essential but a five star gem.