Big Fish From Li'l D.C.: Hot Tuna's Jack Casady

AT 16, JACK CASADY made a fake I.D. so he could start playing rhythm and blues in Washington clubs. Later, he switched from guitar to bass and joined childhood friend Jorma Kaukonen in Jefferson Airplane, and the twosome then went on to form Hot Tuna, a decidedly blues-based affair.

Now 64, Casady returns to his hometown with a Hot Tuna performance at the Birchmere on Dec. 1. The group turns 40 next year and shows no signs of slowing down, even becoming a fixture on the jam-band-festival circuit.

Express asked Casady to reflect on his early days in Washington, some of his favorite collaborations and his nearly 50-year relationship with Kaukonen.

» ON CUTTING HIS TEETH IN D.C.
Well, that was a great way for me to get my journeymen training. And the advantage was, right away, I was thrown away into an adult world as a 16-year-old. And on the club circuits, all musicians knew each other, and hopped around. ... I worked in a club scene with a number of different musicians, Danny Gatton being one of them. As a matter of fact, Danny was more or less responsible for me playing bass because he needed a bass player. I liked it so much that I went out and got a bass and found that my work quota increased dramatically and I started playing bass and guitar in those years. It's always fun for me to reflect back on those days and realize that those nights playing six nights a week, five sets a night pay off to learn all those instruments.

» ON JAMMING WITH JIMI HENDRIX AND MITCH MITCHELL
I did a blues track with Jimi Hendrix ["Voodoo Chile" from "Electric Ladyland"] and that was a lot of fun. He was a great musician: playing with him you just play the music just like a good musician does. You get through your notes and it was very simple; a lot of fun to do.

We did a 15-minute blues and Stevie Winwood was playing and my good friend Mitch Mitchell, who's just passed on. ... Mitch was truly one of the greater drummers I've ever played with — if not the best — and I really liked his light touch and attitude on the drums ... because he had a lot of jazz training. He wasn't playing patterned stuff on a bass drum. It wasn't in a straight-ahead manner. He'd work with the improvisation that was going on with the band members and he came up with some very unique combinations. He was a joy.

» ON RECORDING WITH DAVID CROSBY
I got to work with David Crosby [on Crosby's 1971 LP "If I Could Only Remember My Name"] and that was a lot of fun. David has an absolutely light touch to playing the acoustic guitar; when he gets in the studio you can really hear it: the articulation, his approach, the way he hits his strings — aside from the fact that he's loved certain tunings and combinations of notes to create beautiful chords.

Within that structure, he's one of the guys that really gave me first-hand knowledge of the way to approach the studio — get in the studio and enjoy it for what it is, rather than try to create the live sound. He would just sit down in the studio and try to create an atmosphere, and that was really a lot of fun to do. ... He was really aware of the necessity of creating an atmosphere in the studio, so it was just a pleasure to do. I think we were recording a Jefferson Airplane album at the time, around the corner, and things tended to go on for long periods, so there was time to go and do things with other people. There was a lot of cross-pollination.

» ON JORMA KAUKONEN
It really has been [a great relationship] and I think the key to all of that is mutual respect. And as you get older, you get much more patient with these people's personal space and the way they do things and the way they approach things. And you're a lot more tolerant of each other, and I think that you're more mature, you don't get riled by things that are small things, because everyone is really entitled to figure out their own way to approach things.

» ON HOT TUNA'S FUTURE
We've talked a lot about it, and we're slowly fleshing out some material and we're trying to figure out the approach; how we're going to release it — on the Internet or on a private label — and we're talking things over with management.

» Birchmere, 3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria; Mon., Dec. 1, 7:30 p.m., $35; 703-549-7500.

Written by Express contributor Rudi Greenberg

Photos courtesy Hot Tuna