Comment ça, Grace Slick est finie?!

 

J’ai trouvé sur le net ce petit bijou d’interview par Life magazine de Grace Slick, la chanteuse psychédélique de Jefferson Airplane qui a failli faire prendre au président Richard Nixon, alors en pleine guerre contre la drogue et la contre-culture hippie, 600 microgrammes de LSD. Un geste qui aurait sans doute eu des répercussions historiques notables!

Elle aura lié amitié avec Janis, copiné avec Jim, fumé avec Jimi. La rockeuse, qui s’est greffée au groupe sur le tard (juste après le “boom folk” de la baie de San Fransisco, en 1966, soit un an après la formation du groupe), a su se rendre rapidement indispensable, et c’est notamment à elle que l’on doit les succès qui ont propulsé Jefferson Airplane, alors un groupe de rock sans envergure, dans les rangs de la légende du Rock: Somebody to Love, véritable hymne du summer of love,  et l’inoubliable White Rabbit, masterisé dans la version live de Woodstock 69. 

Cette dernière chanson prend une dimension toute particulière, puisqu’il s’agit là de la première à parler “ouvertement” de drogues sans disparaître sous l’effet de la censure. Le titre fait référence à l’acolyte d’Alice, l’héroïne de Lewis Caroll. Avec une candeur feinte, la chanson phare de l’album Surrealistic Pillow fait l’apologie de la consommation des substances à l’époque en vogue, et particulièrement le LSD et les champignons hallucinogènes. Et sous couvert d’une innocence enfantine, la génération Jefferson Airplane met les pieds dans le plat, prenant à témoin la génération ascendante pour démontrer qu’avant de fonder le mouvement hippie il aura fallu vivre beaucoup de désillusions pour forger leur idéal de paix (que la dure réalité réduira en miettes une décennie plus tard), et baigner dans un univers où même enfants, ils décelaient déjà les allusions aux drogues et paradis artificiels chez leurs personnages préférés (Alice au pays des merveilles en l’occurence -ouvrage truffé de références pour drug-users, et le fameux lapin blanc).

La chanson finit en apothéose sur cette phrase qui avait marqué mon adolescence tangeante et que je pensais naïvement être la seule à saisir (yèk lilou?): “FEED YOUR HEAD”.  Grace Slick nous enrobe de sa voix pleine, lourde et hypnotisante. le chef d’oeuvre qu’est White Rabbit a par ailleurs alimenté l’imagination de nombreux metteurs en scène, puisque plusieurs scènes, parmi lesquelles certaines cultes, ont été habillées par la musique ou le symbole de White Rabbit. Dans les plus célèbres, on retrouve un Benitio Del Toro complètement défoncé essayant de se s’auto-éléctrocuter dans LAS VEGAS PARANO, un Mickael Douglas hébété dans une chambre à la lumière bleue dans THE GAME, et une Ada Nicodemou qui se trouve être la fille portant un tatouage de lapin blanc que NEO devra suivre (“follow the White rabbit”) dans l’une des toutes premières scènes du premier volet de la trilogie Matrix (un film bourré de symboles, qui m’a d’ailleurs fait penser la première fois à ”l’Allégorie de la caverne”, de Platon)

Sans rien enlever au reste de l’album, ce sont réellement ces deux chansons qui se distinguent incontestablement du reste du répertoire de Jefferson Airplane. Woodstock leur offre une notoriété internationale. Ils se reproduiront avec cette chanson au festival d’Altamont, où Marty Balin (membre fondateur des JA), passe un sale quart d’heure sous les coups des Hell’s Angels, chargés d’assurer la sécurité de ce concert gratuit.

Par ailleurs, Grace Slick intervient sur les albums mais mène une carrière parallèle avec son mari, le guitariste du groupe Paul KANTNER. Plus tard, le groupe éclatera en morceaux et se reformera péniblement, jusqu’au début des années 70, où il laisse place aux Jefferson Starship, où figurait entre autres David Crosby et le batteur des Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia. Grace Slick commet quelques morceaux en dilettante, mais le groupe n’est que l’ombre de lui-même, et l’aura des Jefferson Starship n’est en aucun cas comparable à celle qui a mené les JA au sommet des charts où se tutoyaient en 67 Sergent Pepper’s, Forever Changes, et autres The PiPer at the Gates of Dawn. Au milieu des années 80, Paul KANTNER, guitariste et dernier membre du groupe initial, quitte le groupe en s’assurant que l’utilisation de “JEFFERSON” ne serait plus possible après son départ. Le groupe, dès lors baptisé Starship, connut un certain succès, notamment avec son album Knee Deep in the Hoopla, classé disque de Platine. Quelques autres succès firent tenir le vestige jusqu’au début des années 90, où il se sépare définitivement. Le groupe initial se reforme furtivement en 1992, le temps d’un concert.

 Un arrière goût des 60’s, ravivé par les 40 ans du Summer of Love, célébrés cette année (programmation conséquente sur Arte tout au long du mois) . Je ne comprends d’ailleurs toujours pas pourquoi cette version incroyable ne figure pas dans le film officiel de Woodstock 69…

December 1, 1992
LIFE Special Issue: 40 Years of Rock ‘N’ Roll
“A Session with Grace Slick”
photo by Brian Lanker (Grace is wearing black pants, shirt and jacket, she is reclining on a tie-dyed blanket, a white rabbit is hopping above her head.)

** Flash back to the Summer of Love – 1967 – the Haight, San Francisco. The music that personified those acid days sprang from the Jefferson Airplane and its lead singer, Grace Slick, who sent her mezzo-soprano soaring and broke
the psychedelic sound barrier.  The Airplane’s masterpiece, “Surrealistic Pillow,” put the band over the top with such hits as “Somebody To Love” and “White Rabbit.”  The group’s concerts became more than mere aural experiences; they
were be-ins, chaotic happenings with hour-long jams, light shows and audiences  that behaved like they were part of the performance.  In early 1974, after the Airplane started splitting up, Slick and Paul Kantner – the father of her daughter, China, now an aspiring actress – formed the Jefferson Starship.

Slick sang on the group’s biggest hits, “Miracles” (1975), “We Built This City” (1985) and “Sara” (1986.)  The Airplane reunited in 1989, but with little success.  LIFE Los Angeles bureau chief Jim Calio spoke with Slick at
her home in Mill Valley, Cailf.  where she lives with her husband, Skip Johnson, Prince’s production manager.  Now 52 and a recovering alcoholic, she hasn’t performed in 3 years because of a back injury – but she can still
rattle a tape recorder with the best of them.**

Question:  “There are a lot of stories about how wild you were in the 60’s. Are they all true?”

Grace:  “Yeah, they’re probably true.  It’s just that I don’t remember them.”

Q:  “Did you grow up normal?”

Grace:  “I was a pretty standard representative of an individual at that age, coming out of the 50’s ethic that was very bland, very naive.  My father was a banker.  My mother wore nylons and heels and a skirt and sweater, and she
had her hair done and wore jewelry every day.  The house was spotless.  The adults had an Eisenhower is-going -to-take-care-of-everything attitude; it was dumb- on-purpose time.  We were the first generation to be educated on a mass basis, and what we learned in college was the ability to think about what was happening.”

Q:  “How did you get involved in music?”

Grace:  “I was working as a model for I.Magnum’s in San Francisco – this was around 1965.  I went to see this group called Jefferson Airplane.  I looked at them and thought, “Gee, they’re having a lot more fun than I am.  They get to drink beer, hang out and just have fun.  And it’s better pay.”  It was just a matter of thinking that they had a better job than I did.  So I started singing with another band – The Great Society – and pretty soon there were personnel changes in the Airplane, so I joined them.”

Q:  “Did you model your singing style on anyone in particular?”

Grace:  “No, I came out of nothing.  Most artists had a background in blues or folk.  I just went right into electric music.  I was born for rock ‘n’ roll. My voice is not a particularly good instrument.  It’s got a limited range. I can’t sing a lullaby – I mean if I ever tried singing lullabies to China when she was a baby I would have ripped her ears off.  I’ve got a very loud, full voice.”

Q:  “Did drugs fuel the music of the era?”

Grace:  “Well, psychedelics were it – mushrooms, acid, marijuana.  For the generation of the 60’s, they were thought of as opening up a new way of seeing.  You got a glimpse of other ways of interpreting, of communicating. It was very powerful.  And there’s no question that it affected our performances.  Up on stage, you could just do whatever you wanted for a couple of hours – of five , depending on how loaded the audience was.  The audience was just as screwed up as we were.  we’d let people come onstage and take off their clothes.  It was just anything goes.”

Q:   “Did drugs cause musicians like JANIS JOPLIN to self-destruct?”

Grace:  “I knew Janis.  People always ask me if she really killed herself, and I tell them I don’t think so.  I think what happened is that – well, your body chemistry changes.  It’s really tricky.  So what you might have been able to handle one day or one week, your body can’t handle the next day or week. Janis had just got a brand new band and a new boyfriend.  I didn’t think she was consciously trying to kill herself.”

Q:  “What about Jim Morrison of The Doors?”

Grace:  “I don’t know.  We co-headlined with them in Europe, and was that funny.  We were in Amsterdam – drugs were legal there – and we’d all be walking down the street and kids would walk up and hand us these drugs.
We’d maybe smoke one toke off a joint or something. Well, Jim took everything everyone offered him.  And by the time we had to play that night, he couldn’t. He came onstage during our performance, and he was like a pinwheel.  I mean,
he was just flailing all over.  They had to take him away.  But I don’t think it was suicidal.  It was just…push it to the edge, see whether it’s going to fall off or not.”

Q:  “There’s a story that you once tried to crash the White House when Tricia Nixon was giving a party.”

Grace:  “I’d gone to Finch, and so did Tricia.  It’s a finishing school for girls who don’t have the grades to get into Vassar but their parents have money.  So she decided to have a tea for the people who had gone to Finch on the last 5,000 years or something.  I got an invitation.  I invited (60’s radical) Abbie Hoffman to go with me.  Standing in line outside the White House we looked totally different from everybody else.  A security guard came up and said, “I’m sorry, you can’t come in.”  I said, “But I have an invitation.”  I showed him.  My maiden name is Wing, so that’s what was on the invitation.  He said, “Prove it’s you.”  And so I pulled out some identification.  And they went back to their little security box and called people and came back and said, “No, I’m sorry you can’t come in.  You’re a security risk.”  They had found out that not only was I not Grace Wing, I was also Grace Slick.  I don’t know if they recognized Abbie because they didn’t say anything to him.  Anyway, I know what teas are like.  There’s a long table with maybe two tea urns.  You have your best friend pouring tea.  You stand around with your teacup, talking to people.  I figured that maybe I could talk to Richard over a cup of tea.”

Q:  “Richard – as in President Richard Nixon?”

Grace:  “Right.  I had a coat on with pockets, and at the bottom of one pocket was some LSD in powder form.  You get some under your fingernails, and as you’re talking to Tricky Dick, you gesture over his teacup.  We got hysterical
thinking about how the White House would react to him going, “The walls are melting.”  So they were right. I was a security risk.”

Q:  “Was there a special moment when you realized “the 60’s” was dead?”

Grace:  “Nothing really specific.  But I noticed that things were starting to get monotonous.  There was no joy in the audience anymore.  In the 70’s they wanted to hear a song just the way it was on the record.  Everybody started getting into booze and into Quaaludes and going to Studio 54 – stuff like that.  It was all very mindless.  And so was I.”

Q:  “You had an alcohol problem.”

Grace:  “Alcohol was kind of a put down, because it was identified as the older generation’s drug.  It turned out to be my drug of choice – it’s extremely relaxing to an alcoholic.  People say, “Why would you do that?” Wouldn’t you if it made you feel beautiful, smart, energized, blah, blah, blah?  And then it turns you into a jerk, or you die.”

Q:  “Was the Woodstock music festival in 1969 a watershed?”

Grace:  “We played Woodstock.  We thought it was big – and we thought it would be big for maybe six months.  But we didn’t think it would hang around this long.  And Altamont was sort of the yin-yan.”

Q:  “Altamont was later that year, when a Hell’s Angel stabbed a concertgoer.”

Grace:  “I remember the day just didn’t feel right.  We had used the Hell’s Angels a lot for security during free oncerts, and they didn’t beat heads. We went on before the Stones [who were playing when the murder occured.] Spence (Spencer Dryden) was playing the drums, and he kind of let up.  I wasn’t wearing my contact lenses, and I said, Spence, what’s going on?  I can’t see.”  He said, “Marty (Balin) is fighting with a Hell’s Angel.” Well, a Hell’s Angel was beating up on somebody, and Marty said, “Stop that.” They exchanged some words, unprintable in a family magazine, so the guy knocked him down.  You got the feeling that this was not going to work.  But as old Bob Dylan said, the times were a-changing.  No more peace and love.  Now it was, “you’re pissing me off.”  We got just as selfish and nasty as anybody else. We thought that wouldn’t happen because we were so spectacular in the 60’s. We were different.  We had the arrogence of youth.  We thought we were immortal, and we could change it all.”

Q:  “Any regrets?”

Grace:  “No.  The ideals from that time are still alive…somewhere.  I believe that.  When you get older, you realize that it takes a little longer to put those ideals into practice.  We supposedly have a logical brain, but we haven’t figured out how to use it yet.  Now everybody is sucking on their personal neurosis.  Now it’s popular, with therapy and all that stuff, to say, “I have a problem with closeness issues.”  That stuff bores me stiff.  I like global whining rather than personal whining.  Music is more tribal.  Heavy Metal thinks Folk is a bunch of jerks.  New Wave thinks Rap is stupid. And the kids have to worry about the planet falling apart.  There are too many of us.  I like human beings.  I like pandas -  but I wouldn’t want to see 800 million of them all over.”

Q:  “Do you miss the 60’s?”

Grace:  “No, not really.  I did it.  It’s like asking do you miss the fourth grade?  I loved the fourth grade when I was in it, but I don’t want to do it again.”
 

UPDATE:  August 21, 1994
Q:  “Grace Slick, an icon of the 1960’s, seems to have disappeared from the concert stage. What is she doing?  Does she still sing?”

A:  “Grace Slick, 54, the former model and lead singer of the rock group Jefferson Airplane and its successor, Jefferson Starship, hasn’t been singing on stage  in recent years mainly for one reason:  She has been too busy
getting into trouble with the law.  Last March, Slick threatened policemen with an unloaded shotgun and was charged with one felony count and one misdemeanor for brandishing a weapon.  The police found her blood alcohol level at 0.18 – nearly twice the legal limit for operating a vehicle.  The felony was later dropped, and she entered a plea to a isdemeanor and was put on probation.  The judge ordered her to perform 200 hours of community service
and to submit to random drug testing.  Today, Slick attends 4 alcoholics Anonymous meetings a week and is seeing a psychotherapist.”

Et juste par nostalgie pure d’une période inconnue donc parfaite,