Jefferson Airplane – Somebody To Love (Live at Woodstock Music & Art Fair, 1969)

Jefferson Airplane performing “Somebody To Love” at the most famous music festival “Woodstock” in 1969.

“Somebody to Love” – Single by Jefferson Airplane from the album Surrealistic Pillow
B-side: “She Has Funny Cars”
Released: February 1967
Recorded: November 3, 1966
Studio: RCA Victor (Hollywood, California)
Label: RCA Victor
Songwriter: Darby Slick
Producer: Rick Jarrard
Charted No.5 in US

This was written by Grace Slick’s brother-in-law, Darby Slick, in 1965. They were in a San Francisco band called The Great Society, which also included Jerry Slick, who was Grace’s husband and Darby’s brother (Jerry played drums; Darby played guitar). The Great Society released the song as a single in late 1965 with another Darby Slick composition, “Free Advice,” on the B-side.

Billboard described the song as a “wild dance number loaded with vocal excitement,” calling it a “hard driver, featuring powerful female vocal in the lead [which] never stops from start to finish.” Cash Box called the single a “bright, pulsating, rhythmic, sometimes-frenetic, funky rock outing.” Brett Milano of udiscovermusic.com rated Jorma Kaukonen’s psychedelic guitar solo at the end of the song as one of the 100 all-time greatest, stating that it opens “with those three sustained wailing notes and [closes] with those sign-off chords that leave the song forever unresolved.”