Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing; October 30, 1939) is an American musician and painter whose musical career spanned four decades. She was a prominent figure in San Francisco's psychedelic music scene during the mid-1960s to the early 1970s.
Initially performing with the Great Society, Slick achieved fame as the lead singer and frontwoman of Jefferson Airplane and its spinoff bands Jefferson Starship and Starship. Slick and Jefferson Airplane achieved significant success and popularity with their 1967 studio album Surrealistic Pillow, which included the top-ten US Billboard hits "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love".
With Starship, she sang co-lead for two number-one hits, "We Built This City" and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now". She has released four studio albums as an independent artist. Slick retired from music in 1990, but continues to be active in visual arts. In 1996, Slick was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Jefferson Airplane.
Grace Barnett Wing was born on October 30, 1939, in Chicago, to Ivan Wing, an investment banker, and Virginia Barnett Wing, a retired singer. Her parents met while they were both students at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1949, her younger brother Chris was born.
Her father's work required the family to relocate to San Francisco, and then Palo Alto. Wing attended Palo Alto Senior High School, then transferred to Castilleja School, a private all-girls school in Palo Alto. Despite not being academically gifted, she attended Finch College in New York City from 1957 to 1958, and the University of Miami from 1958 to 1959, majoring in art.
After graduating, Slick worked as a model at an I. Magnin department store for three years. She also started composing music, including a contribution to a short film by her husband, Jerry Slick.
In August 1965, Slick read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the newly formed Jefferson Airplane. Despite being situated in the growing musical center of San Francisco, Slick only half-heartedly considered music for a profession until she watched the band live at The Matrix. As a result, Slick (vocals, guitar), accompanied by husband Jerry Slick (drums), Jerry's brother Darby Slick (lead guitar), and David Miner (bass guitar) formed a group called the Great Society. On October 15, 1965, the band made its debut performance at a venue known as the Coffee Gallery. Soon after, Slick composed the psychedelic piece "White Rabbit". The song, which she is purported to have written in an hour, is a reflection on the hallucinogenic effects of psychedelic drugs; when performed live, it featured a speedier tempo and was an instant favorite among the band's followers.
Although Slick was an equal contributor to the Great Society's original material, Darby Slick pushed the band toward becoming a raga-influenced psychedelic act. By late 1965, they had become a popular attraction in the Bay Area. Between October and December 1965, the Great Society entered Golden State Recorders and recorded several tracks under the supervision of Sly Stone. One single emerged from the demos, the Darby Slick-penned "Somebody to Love", the "B" side to "Free Advice", on the locally based Autumn Records subsidiary label "North Beach". Grace Slick supplied vocals, guitar, piano, and recorder.
Also during Slick's Great Society period, she was responsible for her friend, Jeannie Piersol picking up singing experience.
In late 1966, Jefferson Airplane's singer Signe Toly Anderson decided to leave the band to raise her child, and Jack Casady asked Slick to join them. Slick stated that she joined the Airplane because it was run in a professional manner, unlike the Great Society. With Slick on board, Jefferson Airplane began recording new music, and they turned in a more psychedelic direction than their former folk-rock style. Surrealistic Pillow included new recordings of "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love", both of which became top 10 singles.
Jefferson Airplane became one of the most popular bands in the country, and through it Slick rose to a position of prominence among female rock musicians of her time. In 1968, Slick performed "Crown of Creation" on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in blackface and ended the performance with a Black Panther raised fist.
1974–1984: Jefferson Starship and solo career
After Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen decided to leave Jefferson Airplane to focus on their project Hot Tuna, Slick formed Jefferson Starship with Paul Kantner and other bandmates, and also began a string of solo albums with Manhole, followed by Dreams, Welcome to the Wrecking Ball!, and Software. Manhole also featured keyboardist/bassist Pete Sears, who joined Jefferson Starship in 1974. Sears and Slick penned several early Jefferson Starship songs together, including "Hyperdrive" and "Play On Love". Dreams, which was produced by Ron Frangipane and incorporated many of the ideas Slick encountered attending twelve-step program meetings, is the most personal of her solo albums, and was nominated for a Grammy Award.
Slick was nicknamed "The Chrome Nun" by David Crosby, who also used the nickname "Baron von Tollbooth" for Kantner. Their nicknames appear as the title of an album she made in 1973 with bandmates Kantner and David Freiberg: Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun.
1984–1989: Starship and Jefferson Airplane reunion
During the 1980s, while Slick was the only member remaining from Jefferson Airplane in Starship, the band went on to score three chart-topping successes with "We Built This City", "Sara", and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now", which received a big boost from being featured in the movie Mannequin. Despite the success, Slick since has spoken negatively about the experience and the music. In 1987, Slick co-hosted The Legendary Ladies of Rock & Roll, for which she also sang backing vocals on "Be My Baby" and "Da Doo Ron Ron". She left Starship in 1988, shortly after the release of No Protection.
In 1989, Slick and her former Jefferson Airplane band members reformed the group. They released a self-titled reunion album, and held a successful tour before disbanding.
Following the Jefferson Airplane reunion, Slick retired from the music business. During a 1998 interview with VH1 on a Behind the Music documentary featuring Jefferson Airplane, Slick, who was never shy about discussing the process of getting old, said that the main reason she retired from the music business was that "all rock-and-rollers over the age of 50 look stupid and should retire." In a 2007 interview, she reiterated: "You can do jazz, classical, blues, opera, country until you're 150, but rap and rock and roll are really a way for young people to get that anger out", and, "It's silly to perform a song that has no relevance to the present or expresses feelings you no longer have."