Jefferson Starship Lands in Santa Barbara

Parsing through the musical history of Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship may be a bit of a zig-zag, but one thing is clear — the band’s iconic sound of the 60s, 70s, and on through the 2020 record Mother of the Sun will be onstage at The Granada Theatre on Sunday, March 3. (And yes, the Granada has assured us that their recent water damage is on track to be fixed and the stage will be ready to rock ‘n’ roll.)

I spoke to Cathy Richardson — who celebrates her 16th anniversary as Jefferson Starship’s frontwoman in March — about what we can expect from the show, which is part of their Live on Cloud 9 Tour with the Marshall Tucker Band. 

“We try to mix it up. We don’t want to do the exact same show every single night. Then again, there’s certain songs that people want to hear every single show: ‘White Rabbit,’ ‘Somebody to Love,’ ‘We Built This City,’ ‘Jane,’ ‘Find Your Way Back,’ the big Starship hits. … We’re gonna play all the all the greatest hits of Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship and Starship,” said Richardson, speaking from her home in Chicago, where the band was about to take off to perform on Rock Legends Cruise XI, which sounds like an amazing floating music festival alongside other legendary artists like Sammy Hagar, Bret Michaels, Rick Springfield, The Immediate Family, Collective Soul, and Canned Heat, to name a few. 

In all of their shows, “we’re going to give the fans a trip down memory lane,” said Richardson, who reminisced a bit about her own Starship memories. “Growing up,  I was a legit big fan.I have all the Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship on vinyl. And I didn’t have a huge record collection. When I was a kid growing up they were absolutely one of my favorite bands. And I would go to the concerts, and I still have my T-shirts with holes in them and stuff,” she recalls. “So yeah, it was an absolute mind bomb to be invited to sing with the band. And you know, we’ve gone through a lot of changes. So it was like maybe at the point when I joined it [2008] Jefferson Starship sounded better on paper than it actually was. But for all these years, we’ve managed to bring the band up to the A-list where it belongs.”

The current band and album feature Richardson and (Jefferson Airplane alum) David Freiberg on vocals and guitar, Jude Gold on lead guitar, Chris Smith on keys, and (Starship alum) Donny Baldwin on drums and backing vocals. In addition, the original Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick co-wrote one of the songs and bassist Pete Sears is on bass on several tracks.

“It’s been just such a ride,” says Richardson. “And such a trip to get to write a song with Grace Slick, and be in a band with David and (the late Paul Kantner) for many years and Donny, Marty (Balin) at times … So I’ve gotten to really meet most of the original members that were still alive. It’s been such a cool thing in my life.” 

As for the thing that’s kept the sound authentic to its roots for all of these years, “a lot of it is the harmonies, and David Frieberg’s voice is all over all of that stuff. … those voices in that harmony group, their texture, and their timbre is what makes it so familiar, you know?” says Richardson.

“When I joined the band when Paul was still alive, we made a record of folk songs, and the three of us sat around the room, we each had our own mic, but we were all looking at each other and just singing in harmony live together. And it was just the sound of it. The way it rang was just so cool. It’s been amazing to sing in this band because of that part of it.”

The Marshall Tucker Band & Jefferson Starship Live on Cloud 9 Tour is at the Granada on Sunday, March 3 at 7 p.m., granadasb.org.