Readers of Jorma Kaukonen’s new memoir, Been So Long: My Life and Music (St. Martin’s Press), will learn that the celebrated guitarist (Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna) cashed in Israel Bonds, birthday gifts from his Jewish maternal grandparents, to buy his first electric guitar to play with the Airplane. Kaukonen, who’s now 77, traveled the world with a father in the U.S. Foreign Service, and got hooked by the burgeoning folk music scene in the early ’60s. His musical career took off in the San Francisco psychedelic milieu, and he continues to tour and record with Hot Tuna, an Americana ensemble. The lively memoir includes a foreword by Grace Slick and an afterword by Jack Casady, two of his Airplane bandmates; and a five-song CD of Kaukonen originals. — Mordecai Specktor
