Jefferson Airplane guitarist Paul Kantner, hero of the hippie movement, dies at 74

Paul Kantner, co-founder of influential 1960s rock band Jefferson Airplane, has died aged 74. The guitarist, regarded as the unsung creative force behind the band and its hippie anthems such as Somebody To Love And White Rabbit, was in ill-health for some years. He died from multiple organ failure following a heart attack, his publicist and former girlfriend Cynthia Bowman said. The band’s vocalist Marty Balin wrote on Facebook: “He was the first guy I picked for the band and he was the first guy who taught me how to roll a joint. And although I know he liked to play the devil’s advocate, I am sure he has earned his wings now.”

LSD gave me what I always hoped religion would give me, and never did

Paul Kantner, speaking last year

Kantner joined the San Francisco band at its formation and stayed with it as it transformed into the more mainstream Jefferson Starship, which had hits with Miracles and Count On Me in the 1970s. Jefferson Airplane was one of the first bands to frequent Bill Graham’s Fillmore club, the epicentre of the hippie music scene that also brought in the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and The Doors. The band advocated sex, psychedelic drugs, rebellion and a communal lifestyle and gave out LSD at its concerts. His revolutionary songs were sometimes classified as advocating violence but Kantner said: "Violent in terms of violently upsetting what’s going on, not a violence of blowing buildings up.“

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