MUSIC: The guitarist, Marty Balin died in Florida at the age of 71 …
Guitarist Marty Balin, co-founder of Californian psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane in the 1960s, died in Florida at the age of 76 on Thursday, US media reports quoted his family as saying on Friday.
Born Martyn Jerel Buchwald, Balin was a folk guitarist looking for an audience in San Francisco when he founded this group with Paul Kantner, another guitarist, who died in 2016.
This group was the precursor of the psychedelic rock movement, born under the influence of drugs like LSD. From 1969 to 1972, Jefferson Airplane was taken by singer Grace Slick. Among the star titles of the album “Surrealistic Pillow”, the group’s great success include “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” written by Balin.
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Already famous in the United States, the Californian group gained a worldwide reputation by performing in 1969 at the legendary Woodstock festival, then at Altamont organized by the Rolling Stones.
The formation split in the early 1970s, but some members, including Balin, Slick and Kantner, found themselves onboard the Jefferson Starship, the group’s new development, a few years later.
His family did not specify the causes of the death of Marty Balin, who had undergone open heart surgery in 2016. Claiming to have suffered multiple problems as a result of this intervention, the musician sued the New York hospital for medical error.
