NEW YORK -- Marty Balin, a patron of the 1960s "San Francisco Sound" both as founder and lead singer of Jefferson Airplane and co-owner of the club where the Airplane and other bands performed, has died. He was 76.
Balin died Thursday in Tampa, Fla., on the way to the hospital, spokesman Ryan Romenesko said. The cause of death was not immediately available.
Balin, who underwent emergency heart surgery in 2016, sued a New York hospital earlier this year, saying a tracheotomy he had at the time paralyzed a vocal cord and caused other damage.
"We knew he had some health problems, but he really didn't talk about it at all and we never pressed him," fellow Jefferson Airplane founding member Jorma Kaukonen said after a show with his band Hot Tuna on Friday night in Massachusetts. "His passing to me at least was sudden and unexpected."
Balin was an ex-folk musician who formed the Airplane in 1965, and within two years was at the heart of a nationwide wave that briefly rivaled the Beatles' influence and even helped inspire the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album.
The Airplane was the breakout act among such San Francisco-based artists as the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, many of whom played early shows at the Matrix, a ballroom Balin helped run and for which the Airplane served as house band.
The San Francisco Sound was a psychedelic blend of blues, folk, rock and jazz.
Balin was known for his yearning tenor on the ballads "Today" and "It's No Secret," and on the political anthem "Volunteers." In the mid-1970s, when the Airplane regrouped as the more mainstream Jefferson Starship, Balin sang lead on such hits as "Miracles," "With Your Love" and "Count On Me." He later had solo success with "Hearts" and "Atlanta Lady."
The Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, but pride in the band's achievements was shadowed by its eventual breakup and by Balin's acknowledged jealousy of Grace Slick, the other lead vocalist. Slick joined the group in the fall of 1966, soon before the Airplane recorded its landmark second album, Surrealistic Pillow.
In recent years, Balin released such albums as The Greatest Love and Good Memories, a retrospective of his Airplane/Starship songs.
Information for this article was contributed by John Rogers of The Associated Press.
A Section on 09/30/2018