Grace Slick

Along with the recorded output of Hot Tuna, Jorma Kaukonen, Marty Balin, and Jefferson Starship, Grace Slick's four solo albums (now out of print) prove that the greatness of Jefferson Airplane was a matter of synergy -- together, its members sparked great collisions of creativity; on their own, they touch off merely a slight bang.

Sadly, solo Slick isn't well represented in compilations. The RCA set is marginally better, but it mainly concentrates on her Airplane/Starship years. while chiefly of documentary interest, Collector's Item is kind of intriguing, gathering two albums (Conspicuous Only in Its Absence, How It Was) of pre-Airplane work with a nondescript crew called the Great Society. The CD features the original versions of "Somebody to Love" (very lame drumming drags it down) and "White Rabbit" (the Society jams for four and a half minutes with an inscrutable woodwind wailing along before Slick finally joins in). More fun is the strange meditation from Rex Reed, reprinted from a 1970 Stereo Review. While chuckling your way through Rex's arch, baffled prose, you'll learn that the singer's real name is Grace Wing, and that she's nuts about Peer Gynt, Irving Berlin, and Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain. (PAUL EVANS)

From the 2004 The New Rolling Stone Album Guide