Thanks to all of you who are sending me your favorite late 1960s and early '70s songs to be included in our 40th Reunion Centennial Class CD to be played at our Friday night party on October 4.
Please keep sending them in by e-mail or on our Class Facebook page. I am trying to take and post them in the order they are received, except for this exception. When a member of the class who is also married to me (40 years next April 27) suggests a song, that goes to the front of the line! Yeah, I am no fool!
The song requested by my better half, Betty Lee Love Nolan, is "White Rabbit" by the Jefferson Airplane and Grace Slick. According to Wikipedia, the song was written by Slick while she was with another band (The Great Society). It was included in the Airplane's 'Surrealistic Pillow" album, then released as a single. The record peaked at #8 on the Billboard chart in 1967 and is #478 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time. It also appears on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 500 Songs that Shaped Rock & Roll.
Here it is, courtesy of You Tube, from the Airplane's performance at Woodstock in August, 1969....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_raXzIRgsA
Of course, the song is rich in imagery from Louis Carroll's books ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND and THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (and the '60s drug culture). But Slick later told the WALL STREET JOURNAL her other inspiration for the song was "the bolero used by Miles Davis and Gil Evans in their 1960 album, "Sketches of Spain." However Wikipedia says that piece is not on that album. Regardless, it's a knockout vocal performance (and song) bySlick and will always be considered one of the standout hits of the 1960s.
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