Hot Tuna CD

Recorded live at the New Orleans House, Berkeley, California on September 16, 1969. Includes liner notes by Jeff Tamarkin.

It is only fitting that Hot Tuna's self-titled 1969 debut (also known as RECORDED LIVE) would be an in-concert, all-acoustic set. The band would make themselves one of rock & roll's top road dogs during their lengthy career, and would return to acoustic work time and time again. Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen (guitar/vocals) and Jack Casady (bass) launched this side project to co-exist with their full-time job with the band, while musically getting back to their folk/acoustic roots.

The CD reissue adds five songs to the original track listing, rounding out such highlights as "Hesitation Blues" (which would become a stage staple for Tuna), Reverend Gary Davis's "Death Don't Have No Mercy," and "Winin' Boy Blues." There is a great sense of ease and rapport between Kaukonen and Casady, and though the sound is quite minimal--the duo plays alone save some harmonica work from Will Scarlett--HOT TUNA remains one of the band's most satisfying releases.

When Hot Tuna's self-titled debut album was released in May 1970, it seemed like the perfect spin-off project for a major rock group, Jefferson Airplane's lead guitarist and bass player indulging in a genre exercise by playing a set of old folk-blues tunes in a Berkeley coffeehouse. The music seemed as far removed from the Airplane's acid rock roar as it did from commercial prospects, and thus, it allowed these sometimes overlooked bandmembers to blow off some steam musically without threatening their day jobs. In retrospect, however, it's easy to hear that something more was going on. Friends since their teens, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady had developed a musical rapport that anchored the Airplane sound but also existed independently of it, and shorn of the rock band arrangements and much of the electricity (Casady still played an electric bass), their interplay was all the more apparent. Kaukonen remained the accomplished fingerpicking stylist he had been before joining the Airplane, while Casady dispensed with the usual timekeeping duties of the bass in favor of extensive contrapuntal soloing, creating a musical conversation that was unique. It was put at the service of a batch of songs by the likes of the Reverend Gary Davis and Jelly Roll Morton with the occasional Kaukonen original thrown in, making for a distinct style. Kaukonen's wry singing showed an intense identification with the material that kept it from seeming repetitious despite the essential similarities of the tunes. (Harmonica player Will Scarlett also contributed to the mood.) The result was less an indulgence than a new direction. [The 1996 CD reissue added five tracks from the same set of shows, increasing the disc's running time by more than 45 percent. "Belly Shadow" was a lost Kaukonen instrumental. The others would become familiar numbers in Hot Tuna's repertoire.] ~ William Ruhlmann

All tracks have been digitally remastered.

Hot Tuna: Jorma Kaukonen (vocals, acoustic guitar); Jack Casady (bass).

Additional personnel: Will Scarlett (harmonica).

Rolling Stone (7/9/70, p.44) - "...Acoustic guitar, electric bass, vocals, and, here and there, a little harp....It is a relaxing album, one to sip wine and sit on the back porch by..."
Goldmine - "Very good performance and sound"