This was a concept album featuring an ad hoc group of musicians (centered on Kantner, Grace Slick, Joey Covington, and Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane; David Crosby and Graham Nash; and Grateful Dead members Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann) credited on the LP as Paul Kantner and "Jefferson Starship", marking the first use of that name.

A founding member of Quicksilver Messenger Service, Freiberg had known and played with Kantner on the folk circuit in the early 1960s and sang background vocals on Blows Against the Empire.

Following a marijuana arrest that resulted in his departure from Quicksilver in 1971, he joined Jefferson Airplane as a vocalist for their 1972 tour, documented on the live album Thirty Seconds Over Winterland (1973).

Chaquico, a high school English student of Traylor's and a member in his band Steelwind, played guitar on the song "Earth Mother" from Sunfighter.

[15] Appearing along with Slick on Manhole were Kantner, Freiberg, Chaquico, Jack Casady, David Crosby, and the London Symphony Orchestra.

It was during this session at Wally Heider studios in San Francisco that Kantner and Slick first approached Sears about playing in what would eventually become Jefferson Starship.

The musicians on Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun formed the core of a new lineup that was formally reborn as Jefferson Starship.

They appropriated the name from Kantner's Blows Against the Empire, with manager Bill Thompson convincing the group that keeping the connection to Jefferson Airplane made sense from a business standpoint.

British veteran Pete Sears, who had worked on Slick's solo album, Manhole, and played with Rod Stewart, was selected to replace Peter Kaukonen as the band's bass player.

Marty Balin, who had contributed and sung the ballad "Caroline" on the previous album, officially returned to the Jefferson fold as a full-time member in January 1975 and stayed with the group for nearly the remainder of the decade.

[3][18][4] Regardless of this success, the band considered the album's sales to be relatively disappointing compared to its predecessor and requested an audit from RCA Records, distributor of their Grunt label.

Balin's reluctance to tour had kept the band off the road for over a year, and Slick's alcoholism increasingly became a problem, which led to two consecutive nights of disastrous concerts in West Germany in June 1978.

[23] On the first night, the band was scheduled to play at the Loreley Amphitheatre, on the bill with Leo Kottke and the Atlanta Rhythm Section, but Slick was unable to perform and the show was cancelled.

[26][29] Towards the end of 1978, a Jefferson Starship that was now without Grace Slick but still including Marty Balin recorded the single "Light the Sky on Fire" (No.

[13] Mickey Thomas (who had sung lead on Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around and Fell in Love") was invited to audition and then joined the group in April 1979.

Schuster, along with horn player David Farey, had previously played on Jefferson Starship's 1978 tour, and he had also appeared on Freedom at Point Zero.

[18] By August 1982, after the recording of Winds of Change but prior to the supporting tour, Dunbar was replaced by Donny Baldwin, who had performed with Thomas in the Elvin Bishop Group.

Paul Kantner's 1983 solo album, Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra, included the track "Circle of Fire", which had been recorded by Jefferson Starship during the Winds of Change sessions in 1982.

[18] While Balin and Slick had come and gone over the years, in June 1984, after the release of Nuclear Furniture, Kantner, the last remaining founding member of Jefferson Airplane, left the band due to disputes over the group's artistic direction.

[34] In October 1984, Kantner took legal action over money he claimed he was owed and to prevent the remaining members from continuing to use the name Jefferson Starship.

[34][14] Shortly after leaving Jefferson Starship, Kantner formed the KBC Band with (among others) his former bandmates Marty Balin and Jack Casady.

Concurrently, vocalist Diana Mangano joined the group (after a brief spell by original Jefferson Airplane singer Signe Toly Anderson) as Gould's replacement.

In 1995 they released Deep Space / Virgin Sky, a live album recorded at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, California on January 21, 1995.

In 1999 Jefferson Starship released the studio album Windows of Heaven, which featured Slick on background vocals on one song, "I'm On Fire".

Other musicians included in this tour were Canned Heat, Ten Years After, Country Joe McDonald, Tom Constanten, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Melanie, John Sebastian, Mountain, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Levon Helm Band, although not all artists appeared at every show.

On July 3, 2009, Jefferson Starship (Kantner, Freiberg, Baldwin, Aguilar, Smith, and Richardson) performed at the Roswell UFO Parade and Festival, along with guest musicians Tom Constanten, Jack Traylor, Barry Sless, plus former band members Pete Sears and Darby Gould.

[52][53] On June 5, 2011, Jefferson Starship (Kantner, Freiberg, Richardson and Smith) performed with the Contemporary Youth Orchestra at Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica in Cleveland, Ohio.

[56][57] The band has featured guest musicians such as Balin, Gould, Gorman, Jeff Pevar, Tony Morley, Richard Newman, and former Jefferson Starship bassist and keyboardist Pete Sears.

[63] About this, Chaquico has said he had only given permission to Paul Kantner to use the name, and by this point, "Freiberg and Baldwin are performing with others who have no connection to the original group, using the name in violation of that agreement.

[64] On August 16, 2018, Judge Maria-Elena James denied Chaquico's motion to strike the counter-claims by the current Jefferson Starship band members of intentional interference to gain a potential economic advantage and defamation.