(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Thu 19 June 2025 21:30, UK
From attempting to spike Richard Nixon with LSD to performing the stand-out set at Woodstock Festival, to say that hippie queen Grace Slick has lived a full and exhilarating life would be an incredible understatement.
Typifying the attitudes and freedom of the counterculture age, Slick first established her compelling vocals alongside The Great Society in 1965, but it was her subsequent work with Jefferson Airplane that made her one of the most important women in rock and roll. However, being at the forefront of the Airplane certainly came with a few health and safety concerns.
Experimentation was the name of the game when it came to the psychedelic scene emerging from San Francisco during the mid-1960s, and Jefferson Airplane captured that inventive brilliance more than most. Albums like Surrealistic Pillow, and its stand-out track ‘White Rabbit’ became unforgettable anthems of the counterculture era, evoking the expansive, LSD-infused rebellion of the time, as well as inspiring countless future expressions of psychedelia.
Throughout it all, though, the behind-the-scenes stories of Jefferson Airplane were just as captivating as their musical output. Not only did the band define the sound of the counterculture era, but they also defined the lifestyle. Slick, in particular, certainly earned the moniker of ‘the acid queen’, becoming infamous for her wild offstage antics. She seemed to live every day as though it might be her last, and on numerous occasions, this free-spirited outlook on life did, indeed, risk bringing a grinding halt to the life of Grace Slick.
The night Grace Slick almost died on San Francisco’s deadliest road
Back in 1971, Jefferson Airplane were going through a particularly turbulent time while recording their proposed comeback album Bark. Over the course of the recording sessions, founding member Marty Balin walked out on the group, and it took nine months to complete the (ultimately somewhat disappointing) album. Perhaps in an effort to alleviate some of the stress brought on by recording the album, Slick and guitarist Jorma Kaukonen decided to have a friendly street race home from the studio.
It should go without saying, at this point, that speeding through the streets of San Francisco late at night, while probably less-than-sober, is not a very good idea. Particularly when that race route involves the infamous Doyle Drive, a now redeveloped stretch of highway that was once known as the most dangerous road in California. The road claimed countless victims since it was firs tlaid in 1936, and Slick very nearly became one such victim.
At speeds of over 100 miles per hour, Slick’s car careered off the road into an embankment, throwing her from her seat. Years later, the vocalist remembered, “A number of people like me have thought that this straight, wide road would be a good place to not only go faster than the speed limit.” Conceding, “Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that it’s called Deadly Doyle Drive for a reason.”
Slick had a lucky escape in the crash. “The impact threw me over to the passenger’s seat, so I was one of those rare exceptions to the seat belt rule,” the singer theorised. “If I’d been wearing one, I’d be dead today because the driver side of the car was crushed.”
Slick also added, “It must have scared Jorma having to go up to a crushed car, wondering what kind of mangled mess he’d find.”
Ultimately, and luckily, Slick escaped the crash with only minor injuries, although it did put a delay on the already behind-schedule recording process for Bark. The disastrous street race, of course, would not be the last wild story to attach itself to Grace Slick, but it is fair to say that she took a little more care when driving after that near-fatal night in San Francisco.
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