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Jefferson Starship was among the most successful arena rock bands of the 1970s and early '80s, an even greater commercial entity than its predecessor, Jefferson Airplane, the band out of which it evolved. Many Jefferson Airplane fans decried the group's new, more mainstream musical direction, especially after Airplane singers Grace Slick and Marty Balin departed in 1978. But with shifting personnel, Jefferson Starship managed to please its new fans and some old ones over a period of a decade before it shifted gears into even more overtly pop territory and changed names again to become simply Starship. Jefferson Airplane, the seminal San Francisco psychedelic rock band of the 1960s, noted for its hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit," began to fragment in the early '70s. Lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady increasingly were preoccupied with their spin-off group Hot Tuna, while the band's other creative axis, rhythm guitarist/singer Paul Kantner (born Paul Lorin ...