If you think of Jorma Kaukonen’s career as a jigsaw puzzle, the whole thing sort of makes sense. It began as a pile of disjointed pieces containing just a hint or color of things to come. Each day, each year, each decade the puzzle becomes more complete. Every new piece is connected to an older one while always expanding the emerging picture of the artist. Today we see an impressive, though still progressing, image of a musician that has been 50 years in the making.
Admittedly, after five decades of adding pieces, we are starting to glimpse the finished product. But there are still a few blank spots here and there waiting for just the right piece, the perfect fit. There are still surprises in the making.
If you look closely at the first piece placed, you’d see a pair of black, thick-rimmed glasses. In the late 1950’s, Kaukonen was listening to Buddy Holly and other rock-and-rollers of the day. And while those musical influences obviously stuck, it was the folk and bluegrass music that was so prevalent in his hometown of Washington D.C. at that time that truly inspired him to start playing the guitar. Another young guitar player from the nation’s capital back then became Kaukonen’s second corner piece — a fellow named Jack Casady who would later take up the bass with some success.
Despite this pairing early on of two future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, it was Bill Monroe, The Carter family, Flatt and Scruggs and other bluegrass greats that drove the early years for Kaukonen, but geography would prove an equally important influence.
After high school, he headed for Ohio and Antioch College. There he was introduced to the finger-style guitar playing of famed bluesman Reverend Gary Davis. It was another perfect fit. Apparently, so too was the rural Ohio landscape which Kaukonen eventually returned to and now calls home.
Despite the growing recognition of his guitar mastery in the early 1960s, a reputation that had him spending his weekends playing alongside some of the top folk and bluegrass players of the day in New York City, Kaukonen says he never thought he would make his living as a player. In 1962, he was spending the other five days a week working in a gas station. But come fall that year, geography stepped in once again. This time it was California calling.
Kaukonen headed for the University of Santa Clara, but on his first weekend in town, his life took an unexpected turn. He went to play a “hoot,” an open mic of sorts, in San Jose. That night he met Janis Joplin, Paul Kantner, Jerry Garcia and others. Obviously, some open mics are better than others.
Still, success wasn’t overnight.Â
“In 1962, my first gig in California was in this little coffeehouse where, you know, you’re battling the espresso machine to be heard. I think I made 75 bucks for the week. I was so excited I took all my friends out to IHOP,” Kaukonen told BW in a recent phone interview.
It was Kantner who would eventually introduce him to another group of musicians that included Grace Slick. This “gaggle of characters,” as Kaukonen refers to them, had just about everything they needed to form a band, except a bass player. So after Jack Casady headed west and joined them, Jefferson Airplane was a go, but the first year was a tough flight.
“I made more money teaching guitar lessons that first year than I did from the band,” says Kaukonen.
But that wouldn’t always be the case. The Airplane’s music flew to the top of the music charts in the late 1960s.
Yet, despite being in one of the biggest rock bands of the day, a band that defined a generation and played at Woodstock, Monterey and Altamont, Kaukonen’s muse came calling in 1969, and he walked away from Jefferson Airplane at the height of its popularity to form a new band called Hot Tuna. His old friend Jack Casady likewise opted out of Airplane to join him.
Hot Tuna allowed Kaukonen to return to the raw blues and folk music that influenced him before California, while still allowing him to play some outrageous rock when the mood struck. Some sets were acoustic, some electric, some soft, some loud, all were critically acclaimed.
While Kaukonen’s time in Jefferson Airplane could be described as a short-lived musical explosion that landed him in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Hot Tuna, in conjunction with his impressive solo career, has been a sustaining force in his life for 47 years and counting. Hot Tuna has taken multi-year breaks at times, but somehow, old friends Casady and Kaukonen always find their way home.
When asked why he spent so little time in Jefferson Airplane and so much in Hot Tuna, Kaukonen laughs and says, “When my 17-year-old asks that, I always tell him it’s the story of my life, kid. I always quit the band right before it starts to make the big bucks.
“But really for me,” he continues, “the exciting stuff as a band — aside from the hits that got us into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — was what we did on stage. We were all experimenting, a lot of stuff was happening. To be able to [continually] create that excitement was hard. No disrespect to anyone, but we didn’t have a string of hits like the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac. They got to just play their songs. To me, our [Airplane] songs were about the interaction. There’s the personality of it, and I believe that can’t be replicated.
“The Airplane only lasted seven years and we’re still talking about it. I think it was a significant band in a lot of ways, but I think when Jack and I left the band, for us, I think the magic was starting to dissipate.
“There was no mystery in Hot Tuna,” he adds. “We’re playing the music we love. Jack’s my oldest buddy. We don’t have band meetings. We don’t argue about shit, you know. The Airplane … I love those guys and gals believe me, but we had band meetings that used to drive me nuts and all the stuff that goes along with that. None of that stuff has ever happened in Hot Tuna.”
In his biography, Kaukonen says, “I never really thought about it when I was younger, but my choice of songs was always an effort to tell my story. Sometimes they were about things that happened, and sometimes they were about things that never happened, sometimes they were about things I wanted to happen, sometimes they were about things I feared would happen … sometimes … there was always a sometimes. Learning to play guitar was the gift that enabled me to set the story to music.”
If it is his guitar that has allowed him to set his story to music, it is his music that has allowed his story to expand to other parts of his life. These days, his life outside of performing music and writing songs is as much a part of his puzzle as his finger-pickin’ blues.
For instance, Kaukonen still loves giving guitar lessons … albeit on a somewhat grander scale.
He never got Ohio out of his blood. So when the opportunity came along to purchase a sizable piece of acreage (more than 200 acres) in the backwaters of the state, he jumped at the chance — backwaters being defined as just a stone’s throw south of Shade, Ohio or about an hour and a half up Jones Hollow Road from the tiny berg of Charleston. Kaukonen calls the place the Fur Peace Ranch, and he’s turned it into a guitar Mecca of sorts.
There are the concerts, a YouTube channel, an NPR radio show and, of course, the guitar lessons or workshops as they’re better described these days. Kaukonen and his guitar-playing pals such as Larry Campbell, G.E. Smith, Jack Casady and the like open up the ranch for days at a time for folks looking to improve their playing under the tutelage of some of the industry’s greatest players. That’s no exaggeration; Rolling Stone has named Kaukonen as the 54th greatest rock guitarist of all time and the 16th greatest acoustic player.
So what’s the difference between guitar lessons and a workshop? A workshop comes with a nice place to sleep at night and an onsite chef. At least that’s the case at Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch. But he and his friends also take the workshops on the road from time to time. He obviously doesn’t need to teach guitar to make a living, so why does he do it?
“I always really liked teaching. I enjoy it,” he says. “I didn’t get to do it there for a while, but in the ’80s, I was teaching at the New School in New York and I found I still really liked it. So when we got into the Fur Peace Ranch, I got to thinking about how we could give something back. Now if this would have been left up to me, you’d be sitting around a campfire on a bail of hay making s’mores or something. But because my wife had a real existence before we met — she was a civil engineer — she designed buildings, got permits, went to the bank, got a loan and did all that.
“I couldn’t support myself on what the Fur Peace Ranch makes by itself, but it has become self supporting. We’re into our 18th year now and employ a dozen local people. I’m the chamber of commerce around there. Who’d have thought, you know.
“It really creates a musical community of like-minded spirits,” he concludes. “To be able to give back, it’s great.”
In addition to the ranch, Kaukonen also owns an art gallery dedicated to psychedelic art. The gallery is called the Psylodelic Gallery for a very good reason, which does not include the inability to spell. It’s housed in an actual silo and hosts several exhibits a year. And finally he rides and collects motorcycles. Of course he does because, frankly, that’s what all of us would do if we could.
If Kaukonen’s music is telling his story, then it also seems that his nonmusical interests must be doing the same thing.
“That’s true. Everything I do in my life now, including the things I do to support myself, really are part of the story,” he says. “When I was young, before I really started making money with music, I didn’t care what job I had. I just wanted to make money so I could do what I wanted to. But everything I do now as a job is a pleasure. I tell my kids; if you’re lucky, you’ll find a job, but if you’re really lucky, you’ll find a job that somehow satisfies your soul, and it doesn’t get any better than that.”
And Jorma Kaukonen should know.Â
Another piece of his puzzle is about to be dropped into place, a new solo studio album from Red House Records appropriately titled Ain’t In No Hurry is scheduled for release on Feb. 17.
The song selection on the new album gives a nod to all the pieces that have come before while remaining fully focused on the here and now. There’s blues, rock, Americana and an unexpected surprise in the form of a lost Woody Guthrie lyric that Kaukonen and pal Larry Campbell set to music. The guitar work is, of course, exemplary, better than Rolling Stone’s 16-best rating, just sayin’.
While the album is great, the best way to hear the new songs, along with some older ones too, is to sit a few feet away from the man himself while he infuses every tune with the stuff that only comes from a live performance. Fortunately, you’ll be getting your chance for just such an opportunity as Kaukonen is playing two shows in Boulder in a few days.
But the best part is knowing that the new music is just one more piece in the puzzle … and that there are still more to come.
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