Alumni Arts
Let me lay it on you
Hot Tuna is back with their first studio recording in 20 years. Jorma Kaukonen '64 has tunes and hard-earned wisdom to share, writes Mark Purdy.
Jorma Kaukonen ’64, the only Santa Clara grad from that year who joined Jefferson Airplane and played at Woodstock, is still picking out precious gems on his guitar at age 70. While with the Airplane, Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady formed Hot Tuna as a side project. It’s now lasted four times as long as the Airplane, touring irregularly and producing far too few albums—as Steady As She Goes (Red House Records, 2011) proves.
Steady is Hot Tuna’s first studio recording in 20 years and a reminder of how rock elders can gracefully fold their age-earned perspective into new material, if properly chosen. Kaukonen, who wrote six of the new songs, has chosen well. So has Larry Campbell, the erstwhile Bob Dylan sideman who produced the album and plays on most of the cuts.
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| Lay it on me: Listen to "Angel of Darkness," from Hot Tuna's Steady As She Goes. |
Kaukonen’s reedy voice, mindful of Leon Russell’s and just as evocative, is a perfect fit for “Things That Might Have Been,” a wistful look at his family relationships over the decades. The other songs are your basic Smithsonian-type journey through America’s musical culture of the last 50 years. You can imagine the chugging “A Little Faster” being played by the old Airplane inside a ballroom, right down to the rolling bass solo by Casady. The funky “Mourning Interrupted” is straight out of Memphis, while “Vicksburg Stomp” is a friendly handshake of bluegrass swing, and “If This Is Love (I Want My Money Back)” is a rowdy, hilarious roadhouse rocker.
But the set’s signature piece is Kaukonen’s own “Second Chances.” With his voice riding a soft and lovely melody, he reflects on life and mortality and looking in the mirror at your wrinkles. Kaukonen has said that back in the 1960s on the Mission Campus, he worked out the fingerwork for several eventual Jefferson Airplane songs while noodling on his guitar in the old Nobili Hall cafeteria. Today, I could well see him sitting outside on the building’s steps, singing “Second Chances” to current students and imparting lyrical wisdom that seems right at home there in the garden: “Our purpose turns from self to all. Our mission is to teach.”
Spring/Summer 2013
Table of contents
Features
Walk Across California
An epic journey whereby one foot is put in front of the other to discover, up close and personal, who and what and where is the Golden State.
Miller's Tale
To tell the story of Bob Miller ’67 is to tell the coming-of-age tale of Las Vegas itself. And it’s the chronicle of a man who served a decade as governor of Nevada. Quite a journey for the son of an illegal bookie from Chicago.
Blood. Sweat. Tears. Repeat.
Nina Acosta '82 was a tough enough cop to pass the test for the LAPD’s SWAT team. Then she learned the hard way about gender discrimination. So how did she do on Survivor?
Mission Matters
When justice is kidnapped
The 2013 Alexander Law Prize honors Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese civil-rights activist and attorney who protested government abuses—including excessive enforcement of the one-child policy—then escaped house arrest to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
Double trouble
Growing up tennis with Kelly Lamble ’13 and John Lamble ’13. And Bronco teams that are a force to be reckoned with nationally.
Keep the door open
For teaching and advising and a ministry that’s blessed this place for 48 years—paying tribute to Charles Phipps, S.J.
I have been a fan of Kaukonen and Jack Cassidy for decades. It's one of the reasons that I produced an outdoor concert of Hot Tuna on Ryan Field while Student Body Vice President my Junior year at SCU. The field was packed with students and non-students. The weather was amazing that day and the music was even better—just ask the mayor of Santa Clara that year, he rode his bike to campus to ask me to lower the volume.
I was saddened to read in Jorma's previous SCU Magazine article that he did not remember coming to SCU that spring day in '78 [in the Spring 2008 issue —ed.]. But, to all those that attended Ryan Field Concert, he was there and most appreciated by all.
Dennis Maguire '79, Student Body Vice-President
During the summer of '70, when Jefferson Airplane was at its peak, they gave a "private" concert at Buck Shaw for the seniors, thanks to Jorma's SCU connection. Watching Grace Slick from 50 yards away belt out "White Rabbit" in a hooded, mini-length faux-fur dress, on a warm summer day was electrifying. But, ever since, Kaukonen's "Embryonic Journey" has been an all time favorite.