“Have you seen the stars tonight? Would you like to go up on A Deck and look at them with me?”

Founding member of the Jefferson Airplane, guitarist and lyricist Paul Kanter died today from complications following a heart attack. He was 74.

Paul Kantner was overshadowed by Jorma Kaukonen’s freak guitar playing and Marty Balin’s pop star voice. But he was the blonde guitarist who made girls stop wearing bras and start having sex. He should have been given the Freedom Medal by some President sometime.

At least he made the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame –

I have a special place in my heart for the song “Have You Seen the Stars Tonight.”

THE trippiest record ever to come out of San Francisco was Blows Against the Empire, in 1970 – two sides of vinyl that made Revolution #9 seem like a high school AV class project, and at the end of the far out musical maelstrom was this sublime little gem.

Jerry Garcia on pedal steel, Crosby and Nash on harmonies, each adding magic that was absent from all the Jefferson Starship missions that followed this transitional paradise that Paul Kantner put together after the Jefferson Airplane crashed and burned.

Rest in Peace in the Stars, Baron Von Tollbooth