It took several tries before Kenny Rogers became a star. As a member of the First Edition (and the New Christy Minstrels before that), he shared in some million-sellers, among them "Reuben James" and "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town," an excellent Mel Tillis song about a disabled veteran. But superstardom lay ahead for this Texan, and it arrived in the late '70s. His experience with the two previous pop groups had prepared him well: he knew the easy listening audience was out there, and he supplied them with well done middle-of-the-road songs with a country flavor. Having gone solo, in 1976 Rogers charted with "Love Lifted Me." But it was with an outstanding song by writers Roger Bowling and Hal Bynum, "Lucille," that his star shot upward.
The rest (as they say) is history: award-winning duets with Dottie West and Dolly Parton, 12 TV specials, another song of the year with "The Gambler," "Daytime Friends," "Coward of the County," "We've Got Tonight," "Crazy," "Lady" (his first pop number one), etc., etc., etc. And that's just the musical side of Rogers. In 1980, the made-for-TV movie The Gambler blasted the competition, followed quickly by Coward of the County, then enough sequels to The Gambler to get him to Roman numeral IV. Throughout the '80s, Rogers remained a celebrity, even when his sales were declining. Even during the '90s, when he rarely charted, his name, face, and music were recognizable in a series of concerts, television specials, films, and even fast-food restaurants.
Like many country superstars, Rogers came from humble roots. Born in Houston, Texas, Rogers and his seven siblings were raised in one of the poorest sections of town. Nevertheless, he progressed through high school, all the while learning how to play guitar and fiddle. When he was a senior, he played in a rockabilly band called the Scholars, who released three singles, including "Kangewah," which was written by Louella Parsons. Following his graduation, he released two singles, "We'll Always Fall in Love Again" and "For You Alone," on the local independent label Carlton. The B-side of the first single, "That Crazy Feeling," was popular enough to earn him a slot on American Bandstand. In 1959, he briefly attended the University of Texas, but he soon dropped out to play bass in the jazz combo The Bobby Doyle Three. While he was with the group, Rogers continued to explore other musical venues and played bass on Mickey Gilley's 1960 single "Is It Wrong." The Bobby Doyle Three released one album, In a Most Unusual Way, before Rogers left the group to play with the Kirby Stone Four. He didn't stay long with Stone and soon landed a solo record contract with Mercury.
Rogers released a handful of singles on Mercury, all of which failed. Once Mercury dropped the singer, he joined the New Christy Minstrels in 1966. He stayed with the folk group for a year, leaving with several other bandmembers -- Mike Settle, Terry Williams, and Thelma Lou Camacho -- in 1967 to form the First Edition. Adding drummer Mickey Jones, the First Edition signed with Reprise and recorded the pop-psychedelic single "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)." The single became a hit early in 1968, climbing to number five. Within a year, the group was billed as Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, and in the summer of 1969, they had their second and final Top Ten hit, "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town." The country overtones of the single hinted at the direction Rogers was taking, as did the minor hit follow-up, "Ruben James." For the next two years, the First Edition bounced between country, pop, and mild psychedelia, scoring their last big hit with Mac Davis' "Something's Burning" in early 1970. By the end of 1972, the group had its own syndicated television show, but sales were drying up. They left Reprise the following year, signing to Rogers' new label, Jolly Rogers. None of their singles became major hits, though a version of Merle Haggard's "Today I Started Loving You Again" reached the lower regions of the country charts late in 1973. Rogers left the group in 1974, and the band broke up the following year.
At the time the band broke up, Rogers was severely in debt and Jolly Rogers was out of business. In order to jump-start his career, he signed to United Artists in 1975, and with the help of producer Larry Butler, he devised an accessible, radio-ready, and immaculately crafted take on country-pop that leaned toward adult contemporary pop, not country. "Love Lifted Me," his debut single for the label, was a minor hit early in 1976, but it took a full year for Rogers to have a genuine breakthrough hit with "Lucille." Climbing to number one early in 1977, "Lucille" not only was a major country hit, earning the Country Music Association's Single of the Year award, but it also was a huge crossover success, peaking at number five on the pop charts. For the next six years, Rogers had a steady string of Top Ten hits on both the country and pop charts.
His crossover success is important -- his lush, easy listening productions and smooth croons showed that country stars could conquer the pop audience, if produced and marketed correctly. During the late '70s and early '80s, much of country radio was dominated either by urban cowboy or country-pop in the vein of Rogers' own singles. Between 1978 and 1980, he had five straight number one country singles -- "Love or Something Like It," "The Gambler," "She Believes in Me," "You Decorated My Life," "Coward of the County" -- most of which also reached the pop Top Ten. In addition to his solo hits, he had a series of Top Ten duets with Dottie West, including the number one hits "Every Time Two Fools Collide" (1978), "All I Ever Need Is You" (1979), and "What Are We Doin' in Love" (1981). Not only did his singles sell well, but so did his albums, with every record he released between 1976's Kenny Rogers and 1984's Once Upon a Christmas going gold or platinum.By the beginning of the '80s, Rogers' audience was as much pop as it was country, and singles like his cover of Lionel Richie's "Lady" confirmed that fact, spending six weeks at the top of the pop charts. Rogers also began performing duets with pop singers like Kim Carnes ("Don't Fall in Love with a Dreamer," number three country, number four pop, 1980) and Sheena Easton ("We've Got Tonight," number one country, number six pop, 1983). Rogers also began making inroads into television and film, appearing in a number of TV specials and made-for-TV movies, including 1982's Six Pack and two movies based on his songs "The Gambler" and "Coward of the County." Late in 1983, he left United Artists/Liberty for RCA Records, releasing a duet with Dolly Parton called "Islands in the Stream" as his first single for the label. Written by the Bee Gees and produced by Barry Gibb, the record became one of his biggest hits, spending two weeks on the top of both the country and pop charts.
Rogers stayed at RCA for five years, during which time he alternated between MOR, adult contemporary pop, and slick country-pop. The hits didn't come as often as they used to, and they were frequently competing with releases from Liberty's vaults, but he managed to log five number one singles for the label, in addition to "Islands in the Stream": "Crazy" (1984), "Real Love" (1985), "Morning Desire" (1985), "Tomb of the Unknown Love" (1986), and the Ronnie Milsap duet "Make No Mistake, She's Mine" (1987). Despite his country successes, he no longer had pop crossover hits. Nevertheless, Rogers' concerts continued to be popular, as did his made-for-TV movies. Still, the lack of blockbuster records meant that RCA failed to renew his contract when it expired in 1988. Rogers returned to his first label, Reprise, where he had one major hit -- 1989's Top Ten "The Vows Go Unbroken (Always True to You)," taken from the gold album Something Inside So Strong -- before his singles started charting in the lower half of the Top 40.
Throughout the late '80s and '90s, Rogers kept busy with charity work, concerts, his fast-food chain Kenny Rogers' Roasters, television specials, movies, and photography, publishing no less than two books, Kenny Rogers' Americaand Kenny Rogers: Your Friends and Mine, of his photos.Rogers continued to record, releasing albums nearly every year, but they failed to break beyond his large, devoted fan base and only made a slight impact on the charts. With 1998's Christmas from the Heart, he established his own record label, Dreamcatcher; She Rides Wild Horses followed a year later, and There You Go Again was issued in mid-2000. A&E Live by Request appeared in 2001, followed by Back to the Well in 2003, Me & Bobby McGee in 2004, and Water & Bridges in 2006. At this point in his career, unable to hit the pop or country charts any longer, Rogers repositioned himself as a nostalgic brand in the middle, releasing 2011's The Love of God, a collection of gospel hymns and inspirational songs, only through Cracker Barrel locations (the album was re-released a year later by the Gaither Music Group under the title Amazing Grace). In 2012 Rogers issued an autobiography, Luck or Something Like it: A Memoir.
Decision: 28 top 40 hits, 11 top 10's and 2 #1's, not counting 14 #1's on the Country chart puts Kenny in the Pop Music HOF....
Jefferson Airplane/Starship
The initial idea for the group that became Jefferson Airplane came from 23-year-old Marty Balin (born Martyn Jerel Buchwald in Cincinnati, OH, January 30, 1942), a San Francisco-raised singer who had recorded unsuccessfully for Challenge Records in 1962 and been a member of a folk group called the Town Criers in 1963-1964. With the Beatles-led British Invasion of 1964, Balin saw the merging of folk with rock in early 1965 and decided to form a group to play the hybrid style as well as open a club for the group to play in. He interested three investors in converting a pizza restaurant on Fillmore Street into a 100-seat venue called the Matrix, and he began picking potential bandmembers from among the musicians at a folk club called the Drinking Gourd. His first recruit was rhythm guitarist/singer Paul Kantner (born Paul Lorin Kantner in San Francisco, CA, March 17, 1941), who in turn recommended lead guitarist/singer Jorma Kaukonen (born Jorma Ludwik Kaukonen in Washington, D.C., December 23, 1940). Balin, who possessed a keening tenor, wanted a complementary powerful female voice for the group and found it in Signe Toly (born Signe Ann Toly in Seattle, WA, September 15, 1941). The six-piece band was completed by bass player Bob Harvey and drummer Jerry Peloquin. The group's unusual name was suggested by Kaukonen, who had once jokingly been dubbed "Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane" by a friend in reference to the blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson.
Jefferson Airplane made their debut at the Matrix on August 13, 1965, and began performing at the club regularly. They attracted favorable press attention, which -- at a time when folk-rock performers like Sonny & Cher, We Five, Bob Dylan, the Byrds, the Beau Brummels, and the Turtles were all over the charts -- led to record company interest. By September, Jefferson Airplane was being wooed by several labels. At the same time, the band was already undergoing changes. Peloquin was fired and replaced bySkip Spence (born Alexander Lee Spence, Jr. in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, on April 18, 1946; died in Santa Cruz, CA, April 16, 1999). Spence considered himself a guitarist, not a drummer, but he had some drumming experience. Also in September, Signe Toly married Jerry Anderson, who handled lights at the Matrix, becoming known as Signe Anderson. In October, Harvey was fired and replaced by Jack Casady (born John William Casady in Washington, D.C., April 13, 1944), a friend of Kaukonen's. On November 15, 1965, this lineup -- Balin, Kantner, Anderson, Kaukonen, Spence, and Casady -- signed to RCA Victor Records. They had their first recording session in Los Angeles on December 16, and RCA released their debut single, Balin's composition "It's No Secret," in February 1966; it did not chart. Meanwhile, Jefferson Airplane began to appear at more prestigious venues in San Francisco and even to tour outside the Bay Area. In May 1966, Anderson gave birth to a daughter, and caring for the child while performing with the band became a challenge. Meanwhile, Spence became increasingly unreliable as his appetite for drugs increased, and he was replaced in June by session drummer Spencer Dryden (born Spencer Dryden Wheeler in New York, April 7, 1938; died in Petaluma, CA, January 11, 2005). Spence went on to form the band Moby Grape.
Following a second non-charting single, Balin and Kantner's "Come Up the Years," in July, Jefferson Airplane released their debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, on August 15, 1966, just over a year after the band's debut. The album had modest sales, peaking at only number 128 during 11 weeks on the Billboard chart. (A third single, Balin and Kantner's "Bringing Me Down," was released from the album, but did not chart.) At this point, Anderson's commitment to her family caused her departure from the group. Jefferson Airplane was able to find a strong replacement for her in Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing in or near Chicago, IL, October 30, 1939), the lead singer for the San Francisco rock band the Great Society, which happened to be in the process of breaking up at the same time. Slick joined Jefferson Airplane in mid-October 1966, and by the end of the month was with them in the recording studio. She brought with her two songs from theGreat Society repertoire: the rock tune "Somebody to Love," written by her brother-in-law Darby Slick,the Great Society's guitarist, and her own composition, the ballad "White Rabbit," set to a bolero tempo, which used imagery from Alice in Wonderland to discuss the impact of psychedelic drugs. Both songs were recorded for Jefferson Airplane's second album, Surrealistic Pillow.RCA did not release either of them as the advance single from the album, opting instead for the departed Spence's "My Best Friend" in January 1967; it became the group's fourth single to miss the charts.Surrealistic Pillow followed in February. It debuted in the charts the last week of March, and its progress was speeded by the release of "Somebody to Love," the first Jefferson Airplane single to feature Grace Slick as lead vocalist. By early May, both the album and single were in the Top 40 of their respective charts; a month later, both were in the Top Ten. With that, RCA released "White Rabbit" as a single, and it too reached the Top Ten. Surrealistic Pillow became Jefferson Airplane's first gold album in July.
Meanwhile, the band, which, naturally, had attracted national media attention (much of it focusing on Slick's photogenic looks), began recording a new album and continued to tour. On June 17, 1967, they performed at the Monterey International Pop Festival, which was celebrated for introducing many of the new San Francisco rock bands (as well as the Jimi Hendrix Experience) and launching the "Summer of Love" that the season was touted to be in 1967. Jefferson Airplane's performance was filmed and recorded. Two songs from their show, "High Flying Bird" and "Today," were featured in the documentary film Monterey Pop, released in 1968. The concert recording was heavily bootlegged and over the years has turned up on numerous gray-market releases as well.
The nature of Jefferson Airplane's commercial breakthrough, and the nature of the band itself, restricted their commercial appeal thereafter. AM Top 40 radio, in particular, became wary of a group that had scored a hit with a song widely derided for its drug references, and Jefferson Airplane never again enjoyed the kind of widespread radio support they would have needed to score more Top Ten hits. At the same time, the group did not think of itself as a hit making machine, and its recordings were becoming more adventurous. Kantner's "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil," the band's new single released in August, featured him as lead singer with Slick and Balin harmonizing. It reached number 42 on the strength of the band's prominence, but they never again crossed the halfway mark in the Hot 100. At the same time, the rise of FM radio, attracted to longer cuts and the kind of experimental work the group was starting to do, gave them a new way of exposing their music. Nevertheless, their third album, After Bathing at Baxter's, its songs arranged into lengthy suites, was not as successful as Surrealistic Pillow when it appeared on November 27, 1967, reaching the Top 20 but failing to go gold. Also notable was the diminished participation of Marty Balin, who co-wrote only one song, and now was being marginalized in the group he had founded.
After Kantner's "Watch Her Ride," released as a single from After Bathing at Baxter's, stalled at number 61, RCA released a new Jefferson Airplane single written and sung by Slick in the spring of 1968. But radio was even more resistant, and "Greasy Heart" stopped at number 98. It was included in the band's fourth album, Crown of Creation, released in August. The title track got to number 64 as a single, and the LP, which featured more concise, less experimental tracks than After Bathing at Baxter's, marked a resurgence in the group's commercial success, reaching the Top Ten and eventually going gold. Jefferson Airplane's live appeal was chronicled on the concert album Bless Its Pointed Little Head, released in February 1969. In August, the group appeared at the Woodstock festival, and it was featured on the million-selling triple-LP soundtrack album to the resulting film in 1970, though it did not appear onscreen in the version initially released. The band's fifth studio album, Volunteers, appeared in October 1969 as its title song became a minor singles chart entry. Volunteers stopped short of the Top Ten, but it went gold in three months. On December 6, 1969, the band played at the Rolling Stones' disastrous Altamont free concert in California, its performance (complete with Balin's beating at the hands of Hell's Angels) captured in the 1970 documentary film Gimme Shelter.Jefferson Airplane released one more single, the non-charting marijuana anthem "Mexico," in 1970 in its familiar configuration, but the turn of the 1970s brought great changes in the group. Already,Kaukonen and Casady, with assorted sidemen, had begun to play separately as Hot Tuna while maintaining their membership in Jefferson Airplane; they had recorded shows the previous September for a self-titled debut album issued in May 1970. Spencer Dryden was fired early in the year and replaced by drummer Joey Covington (born Joseph Michno in East Conemaugh, PA, June 27, 1945; died in Palm Springs, CA, June 4, 2013). At shows performed in October 1970, violinist Papa John Creach, who had been performing with Hot Tuna, first played with Jefferson Airplane. Creach (bornJohn Henry Creach in Beaver Falls, PA, May 18, 1917; died February 22, 1994) was a journeyman musician decades older than any of the other members of Jefferson Airplane, and his recruitment was evidence of the ways in which the band's approach was changing. An even more radical change was the departure of Marty Balin, who left the band at the end of the fall tour in November. (His resignation was formally announced in April 1971.)
Jefferson Airplane did not have a new album ready for release in 1970, and RCA filled the gap with a compilation, sarcastically dubbed The Worst of Jefferson Airplane and released in November. The album went gold quickly and was later certified platinum. Issued on its heels was Paul Kantner's debut solo album, Blows Against the Empire, featuring most of the members of Jefferson Airplane as well as various other musical friends. Due to that long list of sidemen and the album's science fiction theme about a group of hippies hijacking a spaceship, Kantner co-billed the disc to "Jefferson Starship." As yet, there was no such entity, but Kantner would use the name for a real band later.
Having completed their recording commitment to RCA,Jefferson Airplane shopped for a new label, but was wooed back when RCA offered them their own imprint, Grunt Records. Grunt bowed with the release of the sixth Jefferson Airplane studio album, Bark, in August 1971. The album stopped just short of the Top Ten and quickly went gold.Covington, Casady, and Kaukonen's "Pretty as You Feel," later issued as a single, gave the band its final placing in the Hot 100 at number 60 early in 1972. Grunt issued albums by bandmembers including Creach and Hot Tuna, as well as discs by friends, but Jefferson Airplane remained its most successful act.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 Kantner in San Francisco, CA, March 17, 1941) and singer Grace Slick(born Grace Barnett Wing in or near Chicago, IL, October 30, 1939), having become a romantic couple, had their own musical and political interests, and singer Marty Balin (born Martyn Jerel Buchwald in Cincinnati, OH, January 30, 1942), the odd man out, had become sufficiently disenchanted with the band he himself had formed that he quit Jefferson Airplane at the end of a tour over the Thanksgiving weekend in 1970. The following week saw the release of Blows Against the Empire, Kantner's debut solo album, which he had recorded with a long list of musician friends from Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, among others. To pay tribute to this loose-knit studio ensemble and refer to the album's science fiction theme, Kantner co-billed the album to "Jefferson Starship," even though there was, as yet, no such permanent entity. Nevertheless, the album featured performers who would be members of Jefferson Starship when it was established as a real band, in particular Kantner, Slick, and Quicksilver Messenger Service member David Freiberg(born in Boston, MA, August 24, 1938).
A year later, in late 1971, Kantner and Slick released a duo album, Sunfighter. One track, "Earth Mother," was a song written by Jack Traylor, a high-school English teacher and friend of Kantner's, and on lead guitar was teenager Craig Chaquico (born September 26, 1954), a student of Traylor's and a member of his band, Steelwind. Jefferson Airplanegave what turned out to be its final performance in September 1972, by which time Freiberg had joined the group. The next album out of the Jefferson Airplane troupe was Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun, credited to Kantner, Slick, andFreiberg, and released in the spring of 1973, an album that featured the other members of Jefferson Airplane in subsidiary roles, and on which Chaquico also appeared. Many of the same musicians appeared on Grace Slick's debut solo album, Manhole, released in early 1974.When it became apparent that Kaukonen and Casady were not interested in reconvening Jefferson Airplane, Kantner decided to form a permanent touring band without them. The name "Jefferson Airplane" was co-owned by Casady, Kantner, Kaukonen, Slick, and the band's manager, Bill Thompson. So, Kantner determined to call the revised unit Jefferson Starship. The new band began with the remaining elements of the old one: Kantner on rhythm guitar and vocals; Slick on vocals;Freiberg on vocals and keyboards; Papa John Creach (born John Henry Creach in Beaver Falls, PA, May 18, 1917; died February 22, 1994) on electric violin; and John Barbata (born in Passaic, NJ, April 1, 1945) on drums. Chaquico, still a teenager, but at least out of high school, was the logical choice for lead guitarist. Jorma Kaukonen's brother Peter (who had appeared on Blows Against the Empire,Sunfighter, and Manhole) was brought in on bass. The band began rehearsals in January 1974 and opened its first tour in Chicago on March 19. The tour ran through April, after which the band prepared to go into the studio. Peter Kaukonen did not work out, however, and he was replaced in June by British veteran Pete Sears (born May 27, 1948), who had worked on Manhole.
During the recording sessions in July, Kantner reunited with Marty Balin to write the power ballad "Caroline," which Balin agreed to sing on the album. Kantner and Slick hedged their bets by putting their names on either side of the name "Jefferson Starship" on the cover of the album, Dragon Fly, when it was released in October 1974. They needn't have worried. Even though the single "Ride the Tiger" petered out at number 84, Dragon Fly just missed the Top Ten and went gold within six months, selling as well as Jefferson Airplane albums generally did. Balin joined the band on-stage at its performance at the Winterland ballroom in San Francisco on November 24 (four years after his final Jefferson Airplane appearance) and then agreed to join Jefferson Starship as a permanent member.
With Balin aboard, the eight-member Jefferson Starship went back into the studio in February 1975 to record its second album and came out in June with Red Octopus, which turned out to be the best-selling album of the entire Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship career, largely due to the presence of Balin's ballad "Miracles," which became a Top Ten hit. (Slick and Sears' "Play on Love" was also a singles chart entry.) The album first hit number one (which no Jefferson Airplane album had ever done) in September, and bounced in and out of the top spot for the next two months. Eventually, it sold over two million copies. (At this point, Creach quietly exited the band.)
Red Octopus set a pattern for the next two Jefferson Starship albums. Balin, whose love songs had dominated the early days of Jefferson Airplane, but who had been shunted aside by the more political and abstract interests of other band members, returned to a major role thanks to the commercial success of "Miracles." Unlike Jefferson Airplane, which valued the individual expression of its members, however bizarre, Jefferson Starship was interested in making commercial music, even if it was written by people outside the band. Spitfire, released in June 1976, was another million-seller, boasting the Balin-sung Top 20 hit "With Your Love."Earth, released in February 1978, also went platinum, spurred by the Top Ten hit "Count On Me" and its Top 20 follow-up, "Runaway."
The commercial success masked increasing personnel problems, however, and those problems came out during the band's European tour in June 1978, when Slick, suffering from some combination of illness and substance abuse problems, missed shows and gave substandard performances. She left the tour early, and at its conclusion Balin also quit the band. After the remaining members returned home to regroup,Barbata was involved in a serious automobile accident that forced him to drop out. This left remaining members Kantner,Freiberg, Chaquico, and Sears to figure out what to do next. In January 1979, they brought in veteran rock drummer Aynsley Dunbar (born in Liverpool, England, January 10, 1946) to replace Barbata. In April, Mickey Thomas (born in Cairo, GA, December 3, 1949), who possessed the soaring tenor voice behind the Elvin Bishop Group's 1976 hit "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," was drafted in to replace both Slick and Balin. This revamped sextet went into the studio in June 1979, and in October the pointedly titled fifth Jefferson Starship album, Freedom at Point Zero, was released. Critics carped that, with Balin and Slick gone, and Thomas installed, the band's sound was indistinguishable from that of arena rock stalwarts like Boston, Foreigner, and Journey. But, of course, those bands were selling in the millions, whatever the critics thought, and Chaquico even took the comparisons as a compliment. The album spawned a Top 20 hit in "Jane" and, while it did not match the success of its predecessors, it reached the Top Ten and went gold, validating the new version of the band, at least in commercial terms.
Kantner addressed the criticisms on the next Jefferson Starship album, Modern Times, released in the spring of 1981 in a song called "Stairway to Cleveland (We Do What We Want)." The album, a gold-selling Top 40 hit featuring a Top 40 single in "Find Your Way Back," was also notable for background vocals by Grace Slick (and a duet with Thomason "Stranger"). Slick, having overcome her personal problems, had launched a full-fledged solo career, issuing albums in 1980 and early 1981. But when Jefferson Starship toured in the summer, she went along, and soon was back as a full-fledged bandmember.
In September 1982, Aynsley Dunbar left Jefferson Starship and was replaced by Donny Baldwin, another former member of the Elvin Bishop Group. The band's next album, Winds of Change, was released the following month. It sported two Top 40 hits, "Be My Lady" and the title song, and it eventually reached gold-record status. Nuclear Furniture, released in May 1984, enjoyed comparable success, spawning the Top 40 hit "No Way Out." By this point, however, Kantner was no longer willing to defend the band's arena rock tendencies. Feeling that he had lost control of the group, he determined to leave it, playing his last show on June 23 before quitting. He also felt, however, that the band should dissolve without him, and when the other members disagreed, he sued over money and the rights to the name "Jefferson Starship" in October 1984.
Kantner's suit was settled in March 1985 with a cash payment and the compromise that "Jefferson Starship," a name to be owned 51 percent by Slick and 49 percent by manager Bill Thompson, would be retired in favor of "Starship," the name by which the band would continue to work. 
The record sales established Starship as a separate entity with a new audience. The group was reduced to a quartet with the departure of Pete Sears prior to their next recording, a song from the movie Mannequin. Released as a single in January 1987, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," written by Diane Warren and Albert Hammond, became Starship's third number one hit in April and eventually was certified as their second gold 45. The second album, No Protection, released in July 1987, was prefaced by the single "It's Not Over ('Til It's Over)," which reached the Top Ten as the album peaked at number 12 and went gold.
At the start of 1988, Grace Slick left Starship, reducing the band to the trio of Thomas, Chaquico, and Baldwin. They added two new members, keyboard player Mark Morgan and bassist Brett Bloomfield, and in the summer of 1989 released their third album, Love Among the Cannibals, which boasted the Top 20 hit "It's Not Enough" but sold disappointingly. The band was set to tour from mid-August to the end of September, but on September 24, Thomas was involved in a fight that left him severely beaten, suffering serious facial injuries that required surgery. Although no charges were filed, it eventually emerged that he had been beaten by Baldwin, who immediately left the band. While Thomas recovered, Chaquico also departed in 1990. In the spring of 1991, the band's label, RCA, released Greatest Hits (Ten Years and Change 1979-1991), which featured one new track, "Good Heart," written by Martin Page and performed by Thomas, Page, Wolf, and guitarist Peter Maunu. Released as a single, it reached number 81. With that, Bill Thompson declared Starship to be inactive.
In 1992, Thomas organized a band that began playing dates billed as "Mickey Thomas' Starship" or "Starship Featuring Mickey Thomas." Although Thomas did not own the right to use the name "Starship," Thompson and Grace Slick, the co-owners of the name, took no action to stop him, and he continued to perform using the name. In 2003, the Brilliant label issued an album credited simply to Starship called Greatest Hits on which a Thomas-led band re-recorded Starship's biggest hits and some songs from Thomas' tenure in Jefferson Starship as well as "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," the hit Thomas sang with the Elvin Bishop Group in 1976.
Decision: With 3 #1's and 8 top 10 hits over it's long and varied career. This combination of three different groups had enough success to be part of the Pop Music HOF...
The Doors
Like "Light My Fire," the debut album was a massive hit, and endures as one of the most exciting, groundbreaking recordings of the psychedelic era. Blending blues, classical, Eastern music, and pop into sinister but beguiling melodies, the band sounded like no other. With his rich, chilling vocals and somber poetic visions, Morrison explored the depths of the darkest and most thrilling aspects of the psychedelic experience. Their first effort was so stellar, in fact, that The Doors were hard-pressed to match it, and although their next few albums contained a wealth of first-rate material, the group also began running up against the limitations of their recklessly disturbing visions. By their third album, they had exhausted their initial reservoir of compositions, and some of the tracks they hurriedly devised to meet public demand were clearly inferior to, and imitative of, their best early work.
On The Soft Parade, the group experimented with brass sections, with mixed results. Accused (without much merit) by much of the rock underground as pop sellouts, the group charged back hard with the final two albums they recorded with Morrison, on which they drew upon stone-cold blues for much of their inspiration, especially on 1971's L.A. Woman.From the start, The Doors' focus was the charismatic Morrison, who proved increasingly unstable over the group's brief career. In 1969, Morrison was arrested for indecent exposure during a concert in Miami, an incident that nearly derailed the band. Nevertheless, The Doors managed to turn out a series of successful albums and singles through 1971, when, upon the completion of L.A. Woman,Morrison decamped for Paris. He died there, apparently of a drug overdose. The three surviving Doors tried to carry on without him, but ultimately disbanded. Yet The Doors' music and Morrison's legend continued to fascinate succeeding generations of rock fans: in the mid-'80s, Morrison was as big a star as he'd been in the mid-'60s, and Elektra has sold numerous quantities of The Doors' original albums plus reissues and releases of live material over the years, while publishers have flooded bookstores with Doors and Morrison biographies. In 1991, director Oliver Stone made The Doors, a feature film about the group starring Val Kilmer as Morrison.
The remaining three members of The Doors -- Manzarek, Densmore, and Krieger -- were involved in various musical activities in the decades following Morrison's death but never saw successes approaching the levels of the original Doors. After the turn of the millennium, Manzarek and Krieger performed live under the name Doors of the 21st Century with singer Ian Astbury of the Cult handling vocals; a legal battle ensued when Densmore filed suit against his former bandmates over use of the Doors name. Ray Manzarek died in May 2013 in Rosenheim, Germany after battling bile duct cancer; he was 74 years old.
Decision: A highly-influential rock band, with a legendary frontman, but only 3 top 10 hits of the Pop chart prevents the Doors from reaching the Pop Music HOF.
Next: 1968 Nominees: Led Zeppelin, Linda Ronstadt, Creedence Clearwater Revival & Sly & The Family Stone
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