BEHOLD THE PALE GHOST OF ROCK N' ROLL
( JORMA KAUKONEN)
( JORMA KAUKONEN)
The love of blues became his passion, the choice of music that permenated the home of a Washington, DC youngster named Jorma Kaukonen. The music that was the chosen art form of his friend Jack Casady's older brother became his muse and inspiration and would lead to an odyssey from our capitol to the embryonic days of the music Mecca in this country, Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. During the pre-musical revolution of early sixties, amidst the glory of beat poets and coffee house folk tunes, Jorma and an unknown pock-marked crooner / ingenue named Janis Joplin would become a well known entity in the various haunts of the celebrated city by the bay. Accolades would abound and the embryonic days of one of the most fabbled bands of the sixties folklore was on the horizon.
The dexterity of Jorma's chord changes, subtle yet hypnotic would define him as one of the most admired and emulated players in the history of recorded music. Jorma would bring a cache of musical brilliance to the band, an oblique trait of sixties regalia that he has not forgotten. Wile on his musical sojourn and knowing the decline of Jefferson Airplane was inevitable, the embryonic stages of Hot Tuna would begin in 1969 and recorded initially in 1970. Excluding a brief hiatus in the early eighties, Jorma and childhood friend and former band member from those halcyon "daze" of The Fillmores", Winterlland, The Avalon Ballroom and others have continues their search for the perfect performance, their zeal for expanding the parameters of the blues genre and to this day, only a live Hot Tuna show can reveal the power of playing to a crowd of cultural mavens who have idolized and emulated both since the tumultuous and decadent days of a decade lost in the sensationalism of lust searh for personal identity.
The Jorma Kaukonen is a cocacophony of tunes that are a dichotomy that keeps both he nad Hot Tuna separated from the tripe and banality of todays airways. Often referred to as The Scandinavian Heartthrob as a pioneering guitarist during the apex of psychedelia, music has become secondary to his flamboyant on stage personna as he now embraces life as a husband, Father and entreprenuer of his personal venue in Ohio, Fur Peace Ranch. Small by perspective of others, the ranch exudes a distinct sense of history, an opulent hall for selected guests and subsequent concerts and a myriad of sall cottagesw used to teach the art of various instruments. To traverse the highways to Fur Peace Ranch is an oblique retreat but evolves into not only an escape to yesteryear but the road that goes on forever. Jorma remains the intrepid soul, the ghost of the past meets the soul of the future. He is a fabled Rainbow Warrior who embraces what he has done, his induction to The Hall of Fame and yet refuses to rely on mundane passages of days gone by and now envisions where he will take his revelers of the blues in 2010. He is an anomoly, not a musician who ostensibly plays hits of long ago Top 10 format but the tunes that have ultimately defined him. With stage charisma, crowd rapport and retained ability, the adoration of four decades now exudes as he strolls onto various stages both here and abroad. There are others who may play as well but there are absolutely none who can play better.
As Bill Graham once stated about another bound of renown, and i paraphrase, " He may not be the best at what he does but, he is the only one who can do what he does".
Nuff said.
Rage on my friend and Rock In Peace
Don Aters - 2010
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