Jefferson Airplane Surrealistic Pillow,Sundazed Music 180 gram vinyl

Sundazed re release of the 1967 classic

At the time of this review only the mono version is available from Sundazed,the stereo is now out of print,but can still be found for around 12 to 17 dollars on Ebay,or Amazon.

Surrealistic Pillow released Feb of 1967 was one of the soundtracks to the summer of love along with The Monkees's Headquarters,The Beatle's Sgt. Pepper and The Door's debut album. Despite what it Say's on the back cover Jerry Garcia being the music and spiritual advisor,Captain ''Trips'' had nothing to do with this albums creation. The album was conceived while the band lived in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco with it's mix of folk rock,and psychedelia pioneered by The Byrds,Mamas and The Pappas [one band I absolutely loath with the exception of Mama Cass] The Seeds,and Love [a band genius Arthur Lee had formed].

Now,enter Grace Slick,the absolute cohesiveness of the band,and who without,the group would have gone nowhere. Grace contributes 2 of the albums highlights ''White Rabbit,and ''Somebody To Love'' she penned herself along with her ex husband she had previously recorded with her band The Great Society.Marty Balin is a great vocalist,but sounds a bit strained at times,and should have turned most of the songs over to Grace's pipes,including the gorgeous song ''Today'. Drummer Skip Spence who was considered to be American rock music's version of Syd Barrett had left the band at this point to form Moby Grape,and would be replaced by Spencer Dryden.

Pillow is not perfect,but contains gorgeous songs,a few sounding very dated,but still fun,I never cared for ''Plastic Fantastic lover'',the title is self explanatory,and found it tacky ruining the albums serious content.

Glad to see this brought back again,and 4 stars to Sundazed for a beautiful re release.