Master guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, who came to prominence as a founding member of The Jefferson Airplane (later Jefferson Starship), and who is celebrating his 50^th anniversary with Hot Tuna, has written a candid retrospective of his life and times, Been So Long.  Kaukonen, who was voted “54^th Greatest Guitarist” by Rolling Stone Magazine, is also a Grammy nominee and member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (class of 1996).

An articulate writer, he details his beginnings as the shy son of an American State Department official to his introduction to American folk & bluegrass music, and his arrival on the burgeoning San Francisco psychedelic rock scene in the mid-1960s. Joining with his boyhood friend and legendary bassist (also in Jefferson Airplane/Starship) Jack Casady to form Hot Tuna*, Kaukonen’s tenure with the Airplane, Starship and Hot Tuna is well-documented.

Kaukonen pulls no punches describing his topsy-turvy personal struggle with his first wife, both their drug addictions, and his eventual recovery. The memoir is filled with key technical points about guitars, his love of teaching the instrument at his Fur Peace Ranch in Ohio, and is tastefully augmented by personal correspondence throughout the text.

With an accompanying CD, a Forward by Grace Slick and an Afterward by Jack Casady, Been So Long is a valuable addition to any serious music library.

—Bob Girouard

*Jefferson Airplane was a star at the original Woodstock in 1969, and Hot Tuna will perform at Michael Lang’s  50^th Woodstock Anniversary celebration in Watkins Glen this August.