Vintage Rock and Roll Photos

Hot Tuna

Hot Tuna was a side project (My God, might it have been the first side project in Rock and Roll history?) of Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Cassidy. This concert was just outside of Binghamton, NY, in 1970, in a small club opened by a few Harpur College (now SUNY Binghamton) hippies. I can’t remember if there were any other shows there, I do remember that the money collected from ticket sales was pretty sparse (most of the people hanging behind the amps and adjacent to the performers were probably friends of the owners) but in the spirit of the times, the show went on. A great show it was as I recall. I didn’t yet have my Nikkormat so the images are not as sharp as later Dead shots I have, but these capture Hot Tuna in a their early days at a venue that was unique and probably could not be recreated today.