SF Gate reports that Kantner’s death was confirmed by his publicist, Cynthia Bowman, who told the publication that the musical legend died from “multiple organ failure and septic shock”.
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The former rocker suffered a heart attack this week and he died on Thursday (January 28).
Kantner formed Jefferson Airplane with Marty Balin in 1965.
“Music would not be the same without the sounds of The Doors and Jefferson Airplane, which both contributed so heavily to the signature sound of the 60s and 70s”. Kantner, the co-founder of Jefferson Airplane whose psychedelic sound and free-spirited mindset helped define 1960s counterculture, died Thursday aged 74, media in his native San Francisco said.
Kantner harmonizes beautifully with David Crosby and Stephen Stills on this sober folk-rock classic contemplating coming of age under the long shadow of the Vietnam War.
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Kantner for a time was involved with singer Slick, with whom he had a daughter, China, whose birth inspired the song “A Child Is Coming“. That group released a series of pop and rock hits throughout the 1970s and into the ’80s. Infighting within the band led to its demise in the early 1980s. Jefferson Airplane also performed at Woodstock and Altamont, where Balin was knocked unconscious by a Hells Angel. Kantner left Jefferson Starship in 1984 and the band continued as Starship with the hit “We Built This City”. It is being reported that Kantner had suffered a heart attack earlier this week (and a previous one in March 2015).
