Signe Toly Anderson, Original Jefferson Airplane Singer, dies at 74

100 World News - Signe Toly Anderson, a vocalist and original member of the Jefferson Airplane who left the band after its first record and was replaced by Grace Slick, has died.

The day Kantner died, Signe Toly Anderson, co-founder and the Airplane's original female vocalist, died in Beaverton, Oregon of respiratory ailments at 74. Many fans of the Airplane in their prime years with Grace Slick on vocals, who absorbed the albums Surrealistic Pillow, After Bathing At Baxter's, Crown of Creation and Volunteers and Jefferson Starship's music are barely aware of Anderson's very brief stint with the original band.

Anderson died Thursday at her home in Beaverton, Oregon, according to her daughter, Onateska Ladybug Sherwood. Anderson was 74 and had been suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Born Signe Toly in Seattle and raised in Portland, Oregon after her parents divorced, she was a folk and jazz singer who had performed in groups since high school. She moved to San Francisco in her 20s and began appearing at a popular folk club, the Drinking Gourd. She was singing folk songs and holding down a job in Frisco when she joined the as yet unnamed band at the behest of Marty Balin and Kantner, who were soon joined by folk-blues guitarist Jorma Kaukonen. Bassist Jack Casady and drummer Skip Spence would join later, Spencer Dryden replacing Spence.

They formed in the summer of 1965 to open the Matrix, an early psychedelic club in San Francisco.

Anderson, married to Jerry Anderson, one of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and one of the pioneers of liquid light shows, was in the band a little over a year. She sang on their 1966 debut album for RCA, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. But by the time the album came out, Anderson had given birth to her first child and she left after a farewell concert at the Fillmore in October 1966. The switch from Anderson to Slick, formerly of the San Francisco group the Great Society, proved momentous for the Airplane and for rock history. Slick brought with her two future standards, "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit," and a fierce vocal style and confrontational attitude that departed notably from Anderson's. The next album, "Surrealistic Pillow," was a landmark of psychedelic rock that made the Airplane superstars and representatives of the "San Francisco Sound."

Anderson was a footnote in the Airplane's history, but was regarded with respect and affection by fans and stayed in touch with Kantner, Balin and other band members with whom she performed on occasion over the following decades.

Signe Toly Anderson‬, ‪Jefferson Airplane‬, ‪singing‬, paul kantner, grace slick