Track Listing

1. Been So Long
2. There's a Bright Side Somewhere
3. Cracks in the Finish
4. Another Man Done a Full Go Round
5. Trouble in Mind
6. Izze's Lullaby
7. More Than My Old Guitar
8. Nashville Blues
9. Walk with Friends
10. Operator
11. Preachin' on the Old Campground
12. River of Time
13. Simpler Than I Thought

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5005 in Music
• Released on: 2009-02-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .15 pounds

Album Description
While America was in the throes of rock & roll's dawn, his ears were elsewhere as a devotee of acoustic bluesmen of the past. After relocation to San Francisco, he was one of the first to back another recent arrival (from Texas) named Janis Joplin. As founding member of Jefferson Airplane, he became pioneering architect of the guitar sound that became the genre Psychedelic Rock. His music became the soundtrack of the Counterculture and the Woodstock Generation, it's accompanying lifestyle / philosophy influenced millions. At the height of Airplane's fame as the most successful American rock band of the 1960s, he walked away to play roots music in Hot Tuna. The following decades he forged his own solo career and continued with Hot Tuna, was elected to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and founded the Fur Peace Guitar Ranch.

RIVER OF TIME is the perfect distillation of the journey, some 50 years after he bought his first guitar.

Produced by Larry Campbell (Dylan Band) at Levon Helm's Woodstock studio, RIVER features Levon on drums and a cast of stellar musicians including mandolin virtuoso Barry Mitterhoff. Campbell also plays and his wife Teresa Williams lends her outstanding vocal prowess.

Six of it's thirteen songs are Jorma originals, a prolific showcase with themes of family, friends and inspired memory throughout.

The album also revisits the blues and country music that Jorma first fell in love with in his youth, featuring bright new interpretations of Mississippi John Hurt, Merle Haggard and Rev. Gary Davis...and pays tribute to old friend "Pigpen" Ron McKernan on the Grateful Dead's "Operator." Whether reinterpreting classics or crafting new originals and shimmering instrumentals, RIVER OF TIME finds Jorma at the top of his game with inventive arrangements and his strongest songwriting to date.

Washington Post
Front-porch folk music doesn't get much better

About the Artist
In a career that has already spanned nearly a half-century, Jorma Kaukonen has been the leading practitioner and teacher of fingerstyle guitar, one of the most highly respected interpreters of American roots music, blues, and Americana, and at the forefront of popular rock & roll. He is founding member of two legendary bands, The Jefferson Airplane and the still-touring Hot Tuna, a Grammy nominee, a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the most in-demand instructor in the galaxy of stars who teach at the Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp that he and his wife operate in picturesque Southeastern Ohio.

Jorma Kaukonen, Jr. was born and raised in the Washington D.C. area. At a local music store he met Jack Casady - beginning a musical partnership that continues to this day. After a break from college, Jorma moved to California, to return to classes and earn money by teaching guitar and backing musicians including a young female blues singer named Janis Joplin. He joined rock band The Jefferson Airplane, which got its name from Jorma, who was given the joke nickname Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane, parodying the names of blues legends.

Casady arrived in San Francisco to play electric bass, and together they created much of The Jefferson Airplane's signature sound. Jorma and Jack would sometimes perform sets within sets at Airplane concerts, as well as play clubs as a duo. They struck a record deal, and Hot Tuna was born. Jorma left The Jefferson Airplane after the band's most productive five years, pursuing his full-time job with Hot Tuna and over the next three and a half decades Hot Tuna would perform thousands of concerts and release more than two dozen records. Jorma and Jack continue to tour as Hot Tuna, in recent years with mandolin virtuoso Barry Mitterhoff and, more recently, with drummer Erik Diaz.

In addition to his work with Hot Tuna, Jorma has recorded more than a dozen solo albums on major labels and on his own, beginning with 1974's Quah and continuing with Stars in My Crown, his debut on independent roots label Red House Records.

But performance and recording are only part of the story. In 1988 Jorma met a young woman named Vanessa Lillian. They married and started Jorma Kaukonen's Fur Peace Ranch Guitar Camp, located in the Appalachian foothills of Southeastern Ohio. Since it opened in 1998, thousands of musicians have gathered for weekends of master instruction offered by Jorma and other instructors who are leaders in their musical fields. A multitude of renowned performers make the trek to Ohio to teach at Fur Peace Ranch every year.

Jorma is quick to say that teaching is among the most rewarding aspects of his career. Beyond Fur Peace, he contributes to an instructional website, providing online learning and support to students all over the world. Amidst the teaching, touring and recording, Jorma Kaukonen finds time to be an active and enthusiastic motorcyclist, outdoorsman, and father.