Jorma Kaukonen is best known as the guitarist for Jefferson Airplane during their long, long ago string of excellent albums that ended when the band members took decidedly different directions. Kaukonen teamed with his JA bandmate, bassist Jack Casady to start the bluesier Hot Tuna. Hot Tuna actually was a side-project formed during JA’s existence to allow the two to explore music quite different than what Jefferson Airplane were involved in. As it happened, Hot Tuna quickly found its own audience resulting in numerous best-selling albums.
Fast forwarding these many years later finds guitarist Jorma Kaukonen with his Fur Peace Ranch, where the legend offers guided guitar training. In 2011, Kaukonen and Casady recorded a new Hot Tuna album, Steady As She Goes. It slotted quite nicely with the classic albums of the band’s early years.
Over the years, Jorma Kaukonen has released blues albums, his last being River Of Time from 2009. Earlier this year, Jorma released his newest solo effort, Ain’t In No Hurry on CD and DD. The new album contains eleven tracks that include classics from the Americana songbook including a rare Woody Guthrie lyric set to new music by Jorma. In addition to the collection of covers, Jorma Kaukonen adds in a few originals to round out this set, including the acoustic closer song, “Seasons In The Field”. The album’s offerings are rich and fulfilling with its blues, country, highlighted by his inimitable guitar playing. Just listen to the album’s “Where There’s Two There’s Trouble”, sung with Teresa Williams. It’s pretty good, and shows off some fine blues guitar slide work.
On June 22, Kaukonen’s own Red House Records will release the LP version of Ain’t In No Hurry. The LP will offer download rights (on an enclosed card with unique code) to the album tracks.
Jorma Kaukonen has always been a treat to listen to. With this new album, Jorma continues to offer his best.
Ain’t In No Hurry on LP can be pre-ordered via his Fur Peace Ranch site here. CD can be acquired here.