Paul Kantner Passes Away at 74

2016 is turning out to be the year we won’t soon forget when it comes to losing our favorite music stars, as David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Natalie Cole, and country singer Craig Strickland (to name a few) have all gone to that Rock ‘N Roll band in heaven.

Now we’ve lost another icon. Jefferson Airplane founder Paul Kantner has died at the age of 74.

Kantner grew up in San Francisco in a tough household, living with step brothers and sisters with a domineering father who refused to let Paul attend his natural mother’s funeral when he was eight years old. The friction didn’t stop as Paul was sent to a catholic boarding school at the age of 11, growing up to resent his father and the status quo – a perfect place to be for the counter-culture, anti-establishment mood the country would find itself in the early 60s. Paul began his career as a folk singer, but would later meet Martin Balin forming Jefferson Airplane in 1965.

Paul Kantner was honest with his advocacy of taking mind altering drugs as a way to find one’s self, and was the driving force behind Airplane, a band that frightened the parents of teenagers who bought their music.

Paul died from multiple organ failure after his heart attack suffered the week before. Paul Kantner, founding member of Jefferson Airplane, dead at the age of 74.

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Photo credit: Gajus / Shutterstock.com