page_title: Hot Tuna
section_title: 1969–1973: beginnings
hierarchical_section_title: Hot Tuna / History / 1969–1973: beginnings
caption_attribution_description: Photo of the musical group Hot Tuna. In front, left to right are Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen, founders and former Jefferson Airplane members. In back are Papa John Creach and Sammy Piazza.
context_page_description: Hot Tuna is an American blues band formed in 1969 by former Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady. Although it has always been a fluid aggregation, with musicians coming and going over the years, the band's name has essentially become a metonym for Kaukonen and Casady's ongoing collaboration.
context_section_description: Hot Tuna began as a side project to Jefferson Airplane, intended to mark time while Grace Slick recovered from throat node surgery that had left her unable to perform. The band's name came from someone Jorma Kaukonen referred to as a "witty wag" who called out, "hot tuna" after hearing the line 'What's that smell like fish, oh baby,' from the song "Keep On Truckin'." Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Paul Kantner and new drummer Joey Covington played several shows around San Francisco, including the Airplane's original club, The Matrix, before Jefferson Airplane resumed performing to support Volunteers. (Although Covington had been hired by Jefferson Airplane, he only performed at select engagements, with Spencer Dryden continuing to perform as the band's principal drummer until his 1970 dismissal). Once the Airplane had resumed touring, Tuna found itself opening for the Airplane. Their early repertoire derived mainly from Kaukonen's Airplane material and covers of American country and blues artists such as Reverend Gary Davis, Jelly Roll Morton, Bo Carter and Blind Blake.
  In September 1969, Kaukonen and Casady employed the moniker for a week of acoustic-based concerts at the New Orleans House in Berkeley, California; recordings culled from this engagement were released as the band's eponymous debut album in 1970. This album has become affectionately known by the group's fans as the "breaking glass album", because of the sound of breaking beer glasses during the recording of "Uncle Sam Blues." Some tracks included Will Scarlett on harmonica.  After the album was recorded, Jorma's brother Peter Kaukonen soon replaced Kantner on rhythm guitar and Jefferson Airplane co-lead vocalist Marty Balin joined on vocals for the electric songs. In 1970, the younger Kaukonen was replaced by Paul Ziegler.
  That summer, RCA paid for the band to go to Jamaica to record their next album, but the album was never finished, in part due to a financial dispute between Balin (who left both bands shortly thereafter) and Kaukonen and Casady. Violinist Papa John Creach joined Hot Tuna and Jefferson Airplane in October 1970. Both bands finished a joint tour in November 1970 with shows at the Fillmore East.
  In September 1970, Kaukonen and Casady performed two acoustic-based shows as Hot Tuna without Jefferson Airplane at Pepperland (a capacious dance hall in San Rafael, California) and received good reviews, further signifying that Hot Tuna could survive without the other band to support it. 
  As Jefferson Airplane wound down and stopped regularly touring for over eighteen months (save for a handful of concerts in the summer of 1971 and winter of 1972) after the Fillmore East shows, Hot Tuna – for whom live performance was always of prime importance – became an independent group consisting of Kaukonen, Casady, drummer Sammy Piazza, and Creach, moving fully to the electric band format. This line-up was first documented on the album First Pull Up, Then Pull Down (1971), which was recorded live at the Chateau Liberte, an obscure club located near Los Gatos, California in the Santa Cruz Mountains that was favored by the band throughout the era. The group also appeared on three tracks from Papa John Creach's debut solo album, as well as "Walking the Tou Tou" from his second album Filthy!.
  The studio albums Burgers (1972) and The Phosphorescent Rat (1974) followed, with Creach leaving before the latter was recorded. These two albums featured mostly Kaukonen compositions. On the former album, David Crosby sang supporting vocals on "Highway Song," while keyboardist Nick Buck (who frequently guested with the group in the studio for the next five years before serving as a touring member in 1977) contributed to two tracks.
caption: The band in 1972. Casady and Kaukonen are in front; Creach and Piazza are in back.
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