After Bathing At Baxter's

Unlike Surrealistic Pillow, released earlier the same year, After Bathing at Baxter’s is classified as psychedelic rock because it eschews the more commercial type pop songs, such as “Somebody to Love,” that appeared on the earlier LP. As such, it was a watershed album; Jefferson Airplane was now a much heavier rock group. Jorma Kaukonen’s electric guitar was especially more to the forefront in both volume and tone.

Divided into “suites,” this musical shift is typified by longer and more experimental compositions such as the nine-minute instrumental “Spare Chaynge” and Grace Slick’s mammoth and unusual “rejoyce,” an homage to James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, with its quirky arrangement and Jack Casady’s stentorian bass line. Many of the album tracks reflect the band’s heavy use of the drug LSD. The cover art is by artist Ron Cobb.

The album peaked at #17, not rising as high as the previous album, mainly due to its experimental sound, but well ahead of the Airplane’s debut. The first single, “The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil,” barely missed the top 40 mark, charting at #42 while the second release, “Watch Her Ride,” charted at #61 on Billboard. Both singles made it to the top 40 in the Cash Box Top 100.[1] The band would continue its major commercial success the next year with Crown of Creation.