BOB BURFORD

 Grace Slick -- It was the mid-1970s, I had moved back to the Bay Area from Reno and was living in San Jose. A friend of mine lived in the Sunset District of The City. I had planned to meet him at his house at noon. I got there an hour early because I hadn’t factored into my schedule that it was a Sunday. There’s no traffic on Sunday, so I made it there in record time. 

I parked in front of a tropical fish and aquarium store a couple of blocks away and got settled in for an hour’s wait. The fish store was open but nary a single customer entered. After getting thoroughly bored, I decided to go into the fish store just to look around. There weren’t very many stores along that stretch of the street; maybe three or four buildings in that block with vacant lots in between. It is primarily a residential neighborhood.

A twenty-something young man offered to help me but I told him I was just killing time. Apparently he had nothing better to do because he began telling me about his fish in detail. Beautifully colored salt-water fish, some eight or ten inches long. Uncommonly brilliant colors. As we were touring the store, a very attractive, gregarious, well-put-together young lady walked in and joined our tour. Introducing ourselves, she said she was Grace Slick. I recognized the name, but only vaguely. If she had been a jazz vocalist I certainly would have known her. But Jefferson Airplane? Not so much. The likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, Carmen McRae, Anita O’Day, etc. do it for me.

Grace was actually interested in the fish and asked some very interesting questions that never would have occurred to me to ask. The guy showing us around the store offered to come down to San Jose and set up a salt-water aquarium for me. I was intrigued. If you know what you’re doing, after about nine months you’ll have a colorful array of fish that doesn’t require feeding; they survive on their own in the mini oceanic ecosystem they’ve created.

 

Time had evaporated and the clock was showing twelve noon. I asked the store clerk if there were any restaurants in the neighborhood. That’s when Grace asked me if I’d be interested in crossing The (Golden Gate) Bridge and having lunch at a “hip little restaurant” with a great Sunday buffet. It sounded like a great idea to me so we hopped in my car and headed for Sausalito. I really can’t remember if the restaurant was in Sausalito, Mill Valley, Tiburon … some­where thereabouts. But she was absolutely correct, I think. The buffet was scrumptious. But that could have been my lady companion, too. Her obvious intellect and very cool personality could make peanut butter and crackers a memorable gourmet event. It was obvious she was definitely a lady of substance.

Anyway, it occurred to me that she obviously had a car left parked on the street near the fish store so I assumed I would be taking her back into the city for her car. “No, I’ll have someone pick it up.” And that was the beginning and end of that issue. Instead, she gave me directions to her house where I dropped her off. We said our goodbyes and that was that. After that, I listened to Grace Slick every chance I got. It was a veritable awakening.

 

Given the quality and nature of her voice, I can’t not help but wonder what she would do with some traditional jazz standards such as “Midnight Sun,” “Something Cool,” “Georgia,” “Darn that Dream,” etc. I’m thinking of Rod Stewart doing a full-blown big band album of jazz standards. It was the first of a few he did and it won for him his only Grammy, very well deserved. Barry Manilow was afraid to ask traditional jazz players to play on a jazz album he wanted to make. At his manager’s suggestion, they made a call to a jazz legend who was eager to do the project. The album went gold. Several artists of that era dove into the big band jazz thing and never looked back. I’m of the opinion such an album by Grace Slick would be something to behold; y’know, powerful voice done gently. [Excerpt from my "Anecdotes" book available on amazon.com]