{"id":585,"date":"2011-08-25T05:23:53","date_gmt":"2011-08-25T10:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=585"},"modified":"2011-08-25T05:23:53","modified_gmt":"2011-08-25T10:23:53","slug":"hot-tuna-forty-years-on-still-going-steady-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/08\/25\/hot-tuna-forty-years-on-still-going-steady-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot Tuna: Forty Years On, Still Going Steady (Part One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

When lifelong friends Jack Casady<\/strong> and Jorma Kaukonen<\/strong> founded Hot Tuna<\/strong> in 1969, it looked to many observers as if the band was a busman\u2019s holiday, a way for the pair of musicians to exercise some musical muscles that perhaps weren\u2019t getting a full workout within the context of their other band, the Jefferson Airplane<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Any skepticism was quickly put to rest, however. From the start, Jack and Jorma were fully committed to their new project. Forty-two years, dozens of albums and thousands of live shows later, Hot Tuna is still going strong. (Save for a 1989 reunion LP, Jefferson Airplane ceased operations in 1973.)<\/p>\n

There have long been two sides to Hot Tuna. Different yet compatible, the two approaches mostly stood apart from one another. Picking up a Hot Tuna album or seeing them in concert could reveal one of two very distinct forms: the electric and the acoustic versions of the band.<\/p>\n

On their first LP, 1970\u2019s Hot Tuna<\/em>, Jack and Jorma presented themselves as an acoustic outfit; their approach was the (slight) updating of country blues. This live set made the point \u2013 without, it should be noted, beating listeners over the head — that there was and remains a vital connection between backwater acoustic music of the early 20th<\/sup> century and modern sounds.<\/p>\n

On their second album, 1971\u2019s First Pull Up, Then Pull Down<\/em>, Hot Tuna plugged in. the results showcased that same connection as did the acoustic set, but did so using the other end of the musical spectrum. Both approaches worked.<\/p>\n

Over the course of their many subsequent lineups, recordings and shows, Hot Tuna has managed to have it both way, though generally not at the same time. But in 2011 the group released Steady As She Goes<\/em>, a record that distills everything that has come before, and still manages to sound fresh and new. For fans of both the electric and acoustic incarnations of Hot Tuna, Steady As She Goes<\/em> delivers in a big way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe songs pretty much dictate the direction you\u2019re going to go,\u201d says bassist Jack Casady. Citing two ballads on Steady As She Goes<\/em> \u2013 \u201cThings That Might Have Been\u201d and \u201cSecond Chances,\u201d Jack notes that those songs \u201chave that ethereal approach that makes you not want to clutter them up.\u201d He points out that those songs\u2019 \u201cdelicate nature\u201d is brought out by the lyrical content, and that in the studio, \u201cyour fingers kind of tell you what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack recalls the development of \u201cThings That Might Have Been.\u201d \u201cJorma showed me that one when we were up in Alaska two and a half years ago. I fleshed it out and wrote the chart for it, and made a little recording, just on my iPhone.\u201d Around that time, Hot Tuna were busy looking for a record company to release what would eventually be Steady As She Goes<\/em>. \u201cSo I didn\u2019t touch the song for a couple years, and I\u2019m not sure Jorma worked on it, either,\u201d Jack says. \u201cThe next time we really worked on the song was when we were in the studio. That extended time away from the song worked in their creative favor, Jack believes. \u201cYou want to be ready to apply any new ideas, without preconceptions.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A similar approach was applied to previously-unrecorded songs that had been part of Hot Tuna\u2019s live set. \u201cWe had been playing \u2018If This is Love\u2019 for about a year live in person,\u201d Jack says. \u201cBut we hadn\u2019t really worked on a tight arrangement. So when we got in the studio with [producer] Larry Campbell<\/strong>, we said, \u2018Listen, let\u2019s change things up between the verse. Let\u2019s put in these little licks.\u2019 That kind of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal was to \u201cgive the songs a little more substance, particularly in the form of a CD.\u201d Jack observes that \u201cthe things you can get away with in a live concert don\u2019t always work quite as well on a CD.\u201d On a recording, Jack notes that the listener\u2019s attention span is condensed. \u201cI liken making an album to making a movie,\u201d Jack says. \u201cIt\u2019s very important how you flesh out the material, how you try to be as concise as possible. You don\u2019t need four choruses and four verse to play a solo over.\u201d On a Hot Tuna CD, Jack says that the goal is to make the ideas succinct. \u201cThat way,\u201d he chuckles, \u201cyou\u2019ll hopefully have material that will stand the test of repeated playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy that studio atmosphere,\u201d Jack says, comparing the process to the editing a good writer applies to his work. A writer \u201creally works on how the words flow, the punctuation,\u201d and making sure the thought is conveyed succinctly. \u201cA studio album is done the same way. And that\u2019s the difference between a studio record and a live album.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steady As She Goes<\/em> features a mix of original compositions and classic old country blues numbers. Yet the transitions are seamless; the record never has a jarring change between styles. Jack credits that seamless feel to two things: the band\u2019s longevity, and careful track sequencing. Engineer Justin Guip<\/strong> \u201cjust put the song sequencing up the way he heard it\u201d in his head, Jack says. \u201cAnd then after we did the basic tracks, that\u2019s how we listened to them going forward with the project. Eventually we said, \u2018You can\u2019t mess with this; it works really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sequencing process was organic and effortless, but Jack note that all his album experiences haven\u2019t been like that. \u201cBelieve me, in the Jefferson Airplane we went through a lot more turmoil with regard to the sequencing. But this one seemed to flow properly. It worked, so why mess with it?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the arc of history that is rock\u2019n\u2019roll, notably few musical collaborations have lasted for many years. But Jack and Jorma have been friends since school. \u201cI was in junior high school, and Jorma was in high school, \u201cJack remembers. \u201cJorma was originally fiends with my older brother Charles \u2018Chick\u2019 Casady. I was playing guitar, and I met Jorma through Chick. We stuck up a friendship, which was kind of unusual in high school because of the age difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had my Telecaster, and he was playing a J-45 (Gibson acoustic) and singing. So we worked up a little band together in 1958,\u201d Jack says. He believes that their friendship is built upon that foundation, since \u201cit was the beginning of both of our musical awakening, something that was pretty unusual for two middle-class kids.\u201d He notes that the Casadys were a \u201cdoctor-lawyer family,\u201d and that Jorma\u2019s father worked for the US State Department. \u201cIt was okay for us to listen to rock\u2019n\u2019roll, but I\u2019m sure our parents didn\u2019t think we were going to make a career out of it. But in those next few years, both Jorma and I found something in music that \u2013 as it turned out — would be more true to us as a profession than anything any of our classmates had in their various professions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0continued<\/a>\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on Twitter<\/a> and get notified
\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When lifelong friends Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen founded Hot Tuna in 1969, it looked to many observers as if the band was a busman\u2019s holiday, a way for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","cat-41-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}