Hot Tuna: Forty Years On, Still Going Steady

Story by Bill Kopp

When lifelong friends Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen founded Hot Tuna in 1969, it looked to many observers as if the band was a busman’s holiday, a way for the pair of musicians to exercise some musical muscles that perhaps weren’t getting a full workout within the context of their other band, the Jefferson Airplane.

Any skepticism was quickly put to rest, however. From the start, Jack and Jorma were fully committed to their new project. Forty-two years, dozens of albums and thousands of live shows later, Hot Tuna is still going strong. (Save for a 1989 reunion LP, Jefferson Airplane ceased operations in 1973.)

There have long been two sides to Hot Tuna. Different yet compatible, the two approaches mostly stood apart from one another. Picking up a Hot Tuna album or seeing them in concert could reveal one of two very distinct forms: the electric and the acoustic versions of the band.

On their first LP, 1970’s Hot Tuna, Jack and Jorma presented themselves as an acoustic outfit; their approach was the (slight) updating of country blues. This live set made the point – without, it should be noted, beating listeners over the head — that there was and remains a vital connection between backwater acoustic music of the early 20^th century and modern sounds.

On their second album, 1971’s First Pull Up, Then Pull Down, Hot Tuna plugged in. the results showcased that same connection as did the acoustic set, but did so using the other end of the musical spectrum. Both approaches worked.

Over the course of their many subsequent lineups, recordings and shows, Hot Tuna has managed to have it both way, though generally not at the same time. But in 2011 the group released Steady As She Goes, a record that distills everything that has come before, and still manages to sound fresh and new. For fans of both the electric and acoustic incarnations of Hot Tuna, Steady As She Goes delivers in a big way.

“The songs pretty much dictate the direction you’re going to go,” says bassist Jack Casady. Citing two ballads on Steady As She Goes – “Things That Might Have Been” and “Second Chances,” Jack notes that those songs “have that ethereal approach that makes you not want to clutter them up.” He points out that those songs’ “delicate nature” is brought out by the lyrical content, and that in the studio, “your fingers kind of tell you what to do.”

Jack recalls the development of “Things That Might Have Been.” “Jorma showed me that one when we were up in Alaska two and a half years ago. I fleshed it out and wrote the chart for it, and made a little recording, just on my iPhone.” Around that time, Hot Tuna were busy looking for a record company to release what would eventually be Steady As She Goes. “So I didn’t touch the song for a couple years, and I’m not sure Jorma worked on it, either,” Jack says. “The next time we really worked on the song was when we were in the studio. That extended time away from the song worked in their creative favor, Jack believes. “You want to be ready to apply any new ideas, without preconceptions.”

A similar approach was applied to previously-unrecorded songs that had been part of Hot Tuna’s live set. “We had been playing ‘If This is Love’ for about a year live in person,” Jack says. “But we hadn’t really worked on a tight arrangement. So when we got in the studio with [producer] Larry Campbell, we said, ‘Listen, let’s change things up between the verse. Let’s put in these little licks.’ That kind of stuff.”

The goal was to “give the songs a little more substance, particularly in the form of a CD.” Jack observes that “the things you can get away with in a live concert don’t always work quite as well on a CD.” On a recording, Jack notes that the listener’s attention span is condensed. “I liken making an album to making a movie,” Jack says. “It’s very important how you flesh out the material, how you try to be as concise as possible. You don’t need four choruses and four verse to play a solo over.” On a Hot Tuna CD, Jack says that the goal is to make the ideas succinct. “That way,” he chuckles, “you’ll hopefully have material that will stand the test of repeated playing.”

“I enjoy that studio atmosphere,” Jack says, comparing the process to the editing a good writer applies to his work. A writer “really works on how the words flow, the punctuation,” and making sure the thought is conveyed succinctly. “A studio album is done the same way. And that’s the difference between a studio record and a live album.”

Steady As She Goes features a mix of original compositions and classic old country blues numbers. Yet the transitions are seamless; the record never has a jarring change between styles. Jack credits that seamless feel to two things: the band’s longevity, and careful track sequencing. Engineer Justin Guip “just put the song sequencing up the way he heard it” in his head, Jack says. “And then after we did the basic tracks, that’s how we listened to them going forward with the project. Eventually we said, ‘You can’t mess with this; it works really well.”

The sequencing process was organic and effortless, but Jack note that all his album experiences haven’t been like that. “Believe me, in the Jefferson Airplane we went through a lot more turmoil with regard to the sequencing. But this one seemed to flow properly. It worked, so why mess with it?”

In the arc of history that is rock’n’roll, notably few musical collaborations have lasted for many years. But Jack and Jorma have been friends since school. “I was in junior high school, and Jorma was in high school, “Jack remembers. “Jorma was originally fiends with my older brother Charles ‘Chick’ Casady. I was playing guitar, and I met Jorma through Chick. We stuck up a friendship, which was kind of unusual in high school because of the age difference.”

“I had my Telecaster, and he was playing a J-45 (Gibson acoustic) and singing. So we worked up a little band together in 1958,” Jack says. He believes that their friendship is built upon that foundation, since “it was the beginning of both of our musical awakening, something that was pretty unusual for two middle-class kids.” He notes that the Casadys were a “doctor-lawyer family,” and that Jorma’s father worked for the US State Department. “It was okay for us to listen to rock’n’roll, but I’m sure our parents didn’t think we were going to make a career out of it. But in those next few years, both Jorma and I found something in music that – as it turned out — would be more true to us as a profession than anything any of our classmates had in their various professions.”

The bridging of styles between rock, blues and country is something that Hot Tuna has been about since the very beginning. Nobody called it Americana in ‘70, but that’s what it was. Noting the popularity of Americana in the 21^st century, Jack laughs when I suggest that maybe popular music has finally caught up with Hot Tuna. “You guys who write about this stuff, always put labels on the music.”

“Really,” bassist Jack Casady concedes, “there’s a certain truth to your saying that Hot Tuna has always brought that music out to our audience. In the beginning, people thought that we had written these Reverend Gary Davis songs. We had to educate people: ‘These are some of the artists we listen to, and we’re going to present them in a slightly different light.’”

But in the end, Jack insists that “it’s really not as complicated as people make it out to be.” He says that “it’s fifty years later, and we’re still digging these influences, and paying tribute to the great musicians — of the 1920s, ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s — that we listen to.” Reflecting on the timeless nature of that music, Jack notes “the material speaks for everybody, without pigeonholing it in a political timeframe. Because, in a certain sense, politics are all the same. The struggles that people have are all the same, no matter what generation – or century — you’re from.”

He characterizes Jorma Kaukonen and himself as “explorers of these different genres. We try to inspire ourselves, and try to present things that make us want to play. We pass it on to our listeners through the means that we have: I play bass. Jorma plays guitar and sings.”

As has often been the case onstage and on record Hot Tuna is more than just Jack and Jorma. For eight years and running, Barry Mitterhoff has played mandolin with the group. Jack says that Barry “lends his ability for melody and tremendous capacity to sort through different genres of music” to Hot Tuna. “His influences only expand our world as well,” Jack says.

“For this project,” Jack says, “it was a great pleasure for me as a bass player to work on the rhythmic foundations with [drummer] Skoota Warner and Larry Campbell.” That approach, says Jack, “allowed Jorma to really concentrate on his vocal and his guitar playing.”

The harmony vocals of Teresa Williams are a key ingredient to the sound on Steady As She Goes. “I’m so happy that Larry was able to bring Teresa in,” Jack says. “And I’m happy that Jorma worked so well with her.” He makes special note of “Smokerise Journey.” On that song, Jack’s goal was to “show my rhythm & blues roots, but at the same time, my family’s from Wheeling, West Virginia; I have that dichotomy working within me.” He recalls thinking, “I don’t want it to fall too heavily on the r&b side,” and found that Teresa’s Appalachian vocals struck just the right tone. “She’s the real deal,” Jack says.” He marvels that a song that was originally only “a verse and a chorus” ended up showcasing what he sees as “the most fun and intriguing things about working in a studio.”

Jack is especially proud of the collaborative approach employed on this album “We were old enough and – finally — mature enough to let everybody’s ideas develop. He points out Skoota Warner’s contribution: “Every song has a unique rhythm; he’s never just ‘playing along.’”

Jack’s bass playing style on the Jefferson Airplane albums of the 60s and early 70s differs greatly from his work – acoustic or electric – with Hot Tuna. “As a bass player, I’m dealing with the material; the material will dictate the style. For me, it was really great: I was fortunate enough to be thrown into a situation where I started to have to develop my own material.” He contrasts that with “otherwise having always to hear somebody else’s ideas first before you get to develop your own.”

“When I got to the Airplane,” Jack recalls, “they had all these different players and writers from different backgrounds. Jorma and I had the most in common; we had played in a lot of rhythm & blues bands, and had worked on arrangements. So when I came to work on Paul [Kantner]’s songs, or Marty [Balin]’s songs, or Grace [Slick]’s songs, it really gave me a fertile field to experiment with the bass, and to do different things.”

“I remember working on Paul’s songs,” Jack says. “Most of his are written in an anthem-like fashion; it was a really tough not to crack, trying to make those songs swing. So I’d be furiously playing along, trying to put notes together, trying to get those songs up and running, to make them move.”

“Marty was little more pop-oriented,” Jack remembers. “I’d find more of a steady groove in a lot of his songs. Grace was really interesting; she’d write a lot of her songs on the piano, and she’d use very interesting voicings. So that opened up another area of my imagination. And of course Jorma and I, because of our appreciation for playing together, we found a very cohesive combination. And then later on we developed that with Hot Tuna.”

Though there have been a number of new and archival Hot Tuna live albums, Steady As She Goes is the band’s first studio record in more than twenty years. “I think the timing is finally right,” Jack says. “We’ve had different people play with us over the years, but – from my point of view – when Skoota started playing with us a couple of years ago, I felt like I could finally move to the next level, creating good rhythm tracks.”

There’s also the fact that Jack and Jorma have stayed very busy in the interim. “Jorma and I have been playing constantly for the last twenty years as Hot Tuna. That, together with our teaching at the Fur Peace Ranch, let us know that there was something better ahead.” They were patient, waiting until the time was right, rather than “jumping into a studio a few years ago.” He admits that “both of us were really holding off; we didn’t have anything really new to say. But after a period of development – of teaching, and taking the time to assemble the right cast of characters – the timing was right.”

Speaking of those archival live releases, in 2010 Collectors’ Choice put out a whole bunch of albums featuring Jack and Jorma. In addition to the four live Jefferson Airplane sets, the label released Live at New Orleans House, a set dating from the very beginning of the band’s history. “I have some different views about this,” Jack says. “Sometimes I listen to that, and I think, ‘Boy, if I played that now, I’d play a lot less.’ But, on the other hand, I can really hear how young and aggressive we were about working on something new for us.”

Jack notes that in 1969, “There certainly weren’t many other guitar-and-bass duos. And most guitarists played in a linear fashion. They’d either play a melody line, or rhythm. Jorma’s playing certainly freed up my approach on the bass. With the thumb keeping the rhythm, the bass line along with the guitar were kind of like the two hands on a piano.” That freed Jack up to “move the bass into a different world — move the melody line – without the wind falling out of the song.” He notes that, “as young as we were, we still kept our direction.”

“Though it didn’t bring on any great record sales,” Jack wryly observes about the early string of shows, “it did begin to work on our loyal fan base. And that has passed through generations.” That thought lead Jack to reminisce even farther back. “When I was a kid — twelve, thirteen, fourteen – my father belonged to the American Jazz Society. I used to listen to all these jazz players from 20s and 30s. And I always enjoyed those small combos’ close interplay. This was done twenty, thirty years before my time; it was the fifties when I was listening to this stuff. To me, it was perfectly normal to listen to that, and to wonder about that other world. I listened to Jelly Roll Morton songs about New Orleans’ Storyville.” Jack mentions other artists – Bix Beiderbecke, Eddie Condon – and recalls that their music “struck right through me. And at the same time, I could listen to rockabilly, rhythm and blues, all kinds of other stuff.”

All of that music, he says, “has profoundly affected me. In the back of my mind, it’s influenced where I always wanted to go with Jorma. Those early recordings sound to me like the beginning of the journey that I’m still on,” he says.

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