Jorma Kaukonen Interview

Guitar Legends Light up the stage in State College

By Don Bedell

(Originally appeared in the Centre County Gazette, January 2010)

Guitarists David Bromberg and Jorma Kaukonen brought their finger-picking style of blues and folk to the State Theatre stage on Wednesday night.  On a crisp cold night outside, the setting inside was warm and intimate.  It was a feeling of friends sitting around the living room playing traditional songs and telling stories as opposed to a typical concert setting.

David Bromberg was born in Philadelphia but grew up in Tarrytown, New York.  He began studying the guitar at the age of 13 after being inspired by the music of folk legends like Pete Seeger and the Weavers.  He attended Columbia University in the 1960s and studied guitar with Reverend Gary Davis.  He has played with musicians like Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia and co-wrote a song with former Beatle George Harrison for Bromberg’s 1971 self-titled album.  He currently lives in Wilmington, Delaware where he owns a violin sales and repair shop.  He is a collector and historian of American violins.  He has played as a sideman on over 100 albums and has recorded nearly 20 albums of his own.

Jorma Kaukonen was born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area.  He developed a love for blues and bluegrass music.  While growing up, he met Jack Casady.  The two still play music together to this day.  After a break from college and travel overseas, Kaukonen moved to California.  He started taking classes again and taught guitar to earn money.  Soon, he was asked to join a new rock band, and he reluctantly agreed.  That new band became The Jefferson Airplane.  When the band was in need of a new bass player, Jorma called his old friend Jack Casady and invited him to move to San Francisco and join him in The Jefferson Airplane.  Jack and Jorma eventually started playing shows together as a duo following performances by the Airplane.  After 5 years with the band, Casady and Kaukonen decided to focus on their own band and Hot Tuna was born.  Hot Tuna has recorded more than two-dozen records and still tours to this day.  Kaukonen has also recorded more than a dozen solo albums.  His latest CD, released in 2009, is titled “River of Time.”  He is also an inductee in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

I spoke with Jorma Kaukonen prior to the show via telephone to discuss his career and the upcoming show in State College.

DB: Being in San Francisco in the 60s must have been incredible with all the music coming out of that area.  Can you shed a little light on what that environment was like back then?

JK: I moved out there in ’62 to go to school.  It was one of those synchronous places where there was lot of art of various sorts going on and that’s just how it was.  And, the cast of characters that have become iconic over the years were just “the guys.”  As history unfolded, of course, it became more than that.  It was a nurturing time if you were an artist.  Everybody was just encouraged to just do what they wanted to do and they weren’t graded as if they were on “American Idol” or something like that.

DB: I heard it referred to that you were all a group of “folkies” that started playing electric rock & roll music.  How did that transition happen?

JK: At the time, I was sort of like a “folk nazi.”  But we all loved rock-n-roll and, guys my age, we all grew up with it.  And, I think what happened was, when bands like The Byrds made that step – they went from being “folkies” into being a national rock act, I think a lot of us started looking at things a bit differently.  But there’s no question that we looked around and said, “Wow, we could be somebody.  We could be louder.”  And we were and we did.

DB: Last year was the 40^th Anniversary of Woodstock.  Of course, you performed at Woodstock with Jefferson Airplane.  Do you think we’ll ever see anything quite like that again?

JK: Probably not.  We have these conversations because there are questions in all of us.  I suspect not, because there was a confluence of cultural influences that came together in that time that made that happen.  It was the first gigantic festival.  Secondly, there was this “us-them” consciousness that I don’t think exists anymore.  There was the Vietnam War.  There was Civil  Rights.  There were all these things that were coming together.  So, my guess on that one is probably not.  But if they do have one and I’m alive, I hope they ask me to play!

DB: With all the tumultuous stories in the history of Rock & Roll, how do you and Jack Casady (Jorma’s bandmate in both Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna), someone whom you’ve know since childhood, still play music together today?

JK:  Jack and I have played together for 52 years this year.  He’s my oldest friend.  We’ve been friends for so long and no matter what has happened in our lives, we have always respected each other and I think that’s the secret for us.

DB: You own Fur Peace Ranch, a guitar camp in Southeast Ohio, which is an area that I personally know very well having lived in Athens County for about six years and going to school there. How did you come to start Fur Peach Ranch and please tell our readers exactly what you do at the Ranch?

JK: I truly just lucked in to moving to SE Ohio.  I’ve been there for almost 20 years now.  I had an old friend from years ago who called me back in 1989 and said, “I own this piece of property in Pomeroy, Ohio.”  And land was really cheap back then, so we bought this 119 acres.  I got to thinking that it would be fun to start a guitar school.  My wife did the stuff that I never would have done like get permits and design the buildings.  We have about 25 buildings now.  We have a 200 seat theatre and a local NPR radio show at Ohio University.  We’re open pretty much from March through November.  Our goal is to make the learning of the music to be un-intimidating.  We try to make it very user-friendly.

DB:  Your last album, “River of Time” (2009) features not only songs that you wrote, but songs from some of your musical influences like Rev. Gary Davis.  How do you go about choosing songs for your records at this point in your career?

JK:  On some level, it’s probably the same.  You start out writing songs and then you have songs that you’re playing that you love and you want to make space for all these things.  The Rev. Gary Davis has always been very important to me and I love doing his music.  I’m not a tunesmith.  I don’t crank out songs like some of my friends do.  Something’s got to be going on, you know?  I had a couple of good years so I was able to collect some good songs to put on this record.  I’m not one of these guys that goes into the studio with 20 songs and have to pare it down.  I go in pretty much with what I know we’re going to put on the record.

DB: The tour makes its’ way to State College on Wednesday night at 8pm at the State Theatre, Downtown.  David Bromberg will open and you will close the show for this date.  Do you do any songs together as well?

JK: David and I are old buddies.  We’ve played together since the early 80s.  And, it’s not really like anybody opening the show for somebody else.  At some of the place, he goes first.  Some of the places I go first.  Whoever’s going first plays 35 or 40 minutes and does their thing.  Towards the end of the set, we get together and do another 30 or 40 minutes together.  And, we do that for both sets.  So, we both get to do our thing by ourselves and we both get to play together in both sets.

DB: I’m looking forward to seeing the show in State College next week.

JK:  Well, listen stop by and say hello and we’ll give each other the secret Athens/Meigs County handshake.  (laughs)

Bromberg opened the show and went through a set of standards like “Delia” (explaining the story behind the song in the middle) and originals like his own “Watch Baby Fall.”

Near the end of his set, Kaukonen and accompanist Barry Mitteroff joined Bromberg on stage.  Mitteroff added mandolin and baritone ukulele to the mix.  In typical blues or bluegrass style, each song featured solos by all three musicians.

After a brief intermission, Kaukonen and Mitteroff took the stage and also went through a set of traditional songs and originals.  Kaukonen played the title track from his 2009 album “River of Time” which was one of the top folk songs of the year on NPR’s Folk Alley.  During Kaukonen’s set, Mitteroff reminisced about his days with the bluegrass band The Tony Trischka Band in the 1980’s playing in State College at HiWay Pizza.

The show concluded with Bromberg re-joining Kaukonen and Mitteroff.  A Bromberg-Kaukonen show would not be complete without them paying homage to one of their musical mentors, the Rev. Gary Davis.  They played his “Hesitation Blues” as part of the last set.

The musicians joked with the crowd throughout the night.  At one point, after Bromberg had explained that they don’t take requests and a member of the audience shouted out a song, Bromberg joked, “We were going to play that song next, but now that you’ve requested it, we’re not going to do it.”  When another member of the audience shouted out a request of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” (Kaukonen was a founding member of Jefferson Airplane), Mitteroff started playing the intro of the song on mandolin to which Kaukonen joked, “I think I’m having a flashback.”

Kaukonen said during his set that they are having “a lot of fun” on this tour with Bromberg.  That was clearly evident to the sold-out crowd Wednesday night at the State Theatre.