Grace Slick celebrates her 80th birthday today (October 30th). The Jefferson Airplane song “Somebody to Love” was written by a Slick but not Grace. In fact you won’t believe what her real name is. The song was on the album Surrealistic Pillow in 1967 and made it to # 5. But it was written by Darby Slick. “Somebody to Love,” was brought to Jefferson Airplane by its new singer, Grace Slick, who had already recorded it with her previous band, The Great Society. But although the songwriting credit is Slick, she didn’t write it. She explains who did and why their names are the same.
“Darby Slick wrote all of it and he is the brother of Jerry Slick, who was our drummer, and I was married to the drummer, so there were three Slicks in the outfit. And that’s where my name comes from, it’s a married name. My real name is Grace Wing, W-I-N-G, but nobody would have believed that belonging to a group named Jefferson Airplane, anyway. So it was better that I used the married name.”
