With financial help from his father and other partners, Mr. Balin opened the Matrix in 1965, designing the stage to accommodate a six-member band. Jefferson Airplane was the first band to play there, and it went on to perform frequently at the club, both on its own and as a backup band for visiting bluesmen. It was the first psychedelic San Francisco band to sign to a major label, RCA, and it released its debut album, “Jefferson Airplane Takes Off,” in 1966. 
 
 Grace Slick replaced Ms. Anderson, and Spencer Dryden took over the drums from Skip Spence before the release of the second Jefferson Airplane album, “Surrealistic Pillow,” in 1967, the year of the Summer of Love. “White Rabbit” and “Somebody To Love” — two songs Ms. Slick brought to the band — became Top 10 hits. (Mr. Kantner and Ms. Anderson died in 2016, Mr. Dryden in 2005 and Mr. Spence in 1999.) 
 
 For Mr. Balin, Jefferson Airplane was focused on live performance, not commercial formula. “We got to a place where the music was playing us, we weren’t playing it,” he told Relix magazine in 1993. “That’s where you want to get to. And from the first note you hit, no matter where you are, even in the biggest hall in the world, from the first note of the first song, you know at that moment you are there or you’re not.” 
 
 Mr. Balin stayed with Jefferson Airplane through three more studio albums that have endured as psychedelic touchstones: “After Bathing at Baxter’s,” “Crown of Creation” and “Volunteers,” for which he and Mr. Kantner wrote the title track. Yet the escalating tension within the band, along with his sorrow at the death of a friend, Janis Joplin, in 1970, led to his departure from Jefferson Airplane in 1971. 
 
 Mr. Kantner invited Mr. Balin to complete a song that became “Caroline” on Jefferson Starship’s 1974 album, “Dragon Fly,” with Mr. Balin on lead vocals. He joined the band as a full member in 1975 and was its frontman for pop successes including “Miracles,” “Count on Me,” “Runaway” and “With Your Love” before leaving in 1978. ||||| Marty Balin, a co-founder of Jefferson Airplane and a member of its later incarnation Jefferson Starship, whose high and soulful voice defined many of both groups’ songs, died Thursday, his rep confirmed. He was 76; the cause of death was not announced. 
 
 His wife, Susan Joy Balin, was “by his side,” according to the announcement. 
 
 Although Balin had his greatest impact as one of the architects of the musical counterculture during his 1965-71 tenure in Jefferson Airplane, he had his greatest commercial success when he rejoined the remnants of that group a few years later in Jefferson Starship, as the sole lead singer on both of that band’s singles to reach the top 10, “Miracles” in 1975 and “Count on Me” in 1978. 
 
 He was a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, having been inducted with other members of the Airplane in 1996. It was 20 years later that the band received the Recording Academy’s lifetime achievement award, with Patti Smith writing in the Grammy Awards’ program book about her appreciation for “the soaring combination of Grace Slick’s acerbic wit and fearless charisma and the romantic purity of Marty Balin.” 
 
 Born Martyn Jerel Buchwald, Balin was a young folksinger in San Francisco when he formed a band with fellow folkie Paul Kantner, who specialized in 12-string guitar. The pair teamed up with guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, bassist Jack Casady, drummer Skip Spence and singer Signe Anderson as the Jefferson Airplane and released their debut album, “Jefferson Airplane Takes Off,” in 1966. Anderson and Spence soon left the band and were replaced by Grace Slick and Spencer Dryden, respectively, and the group’s 1967 album “Surrealistic Pillow” — featuring the Slick-sung hits “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love,” along with several songs co-written by Balin — vaulted the group into superstardom. The harmonies between Slick, Balin and Kantner became a signature of the group’s sound. 
 
 Balin was a galvanizing member of both the band and the San Francisco scene, and in 1965 helped launch a club in the city called the Matrix that hosted many groups of the era, ranging from the Airplane, the Doors and Janis Joplin to the Velvet Underground. He sold his interest in the club after the Airplane’s star began to rise. 
 
 Jefferson Airplane issued several more albums into the early 1970s and played at both Woodstock and Altamont (where he was famously knocked out by a Hell’s Angel after trying to intervene amid the violence). 
 
 The group splintered in the early 1970s but several members, including Slick and Kantner, reunited as Jefferson Starship in the mid-‘70s, and Balin was persuaded to reunite with his former partners during the recording of their debut album. His high tenor voice became a centerpiece of the group’s sound via hits like “Miracles” and “With Your Love.” That group splintered as well before reuniting without Balin several years later as a pure pop outfit under the abbreviated name Starship. 
 
 Balin went solo and enjoyed a top 10 hit of his own in 1981 with the song “Hearts.” In 1989, he joined up with a short-lived Airplane reunion tour and returned four years later to Jefferson Starship, finally leaving for good in 2008. His final solo album, “The Greatest Love,” was released in early 2016. 
 
 He underwent open-heart surgery in 2016 and later sued New York’s Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital for medical malpractice, claiming multiple injuries from the operations. Balin’s illness rendered him unable to attend the Grammys when the Airplane was awarded lifetime achievement honors, but he released a statement at the time, saying, “”I am grateful for the beautiful musical journey my life continues to take. To all my fellow Jefferson Airplane Band members, through its various metamorphoses, I thank you for a dream come true.” 
 
 In a statement, Susan and Balin’s family issued a statement that noted how Balin “also enjoyed painting all his life. He painted vibrant, large-scale portraits of many of the most influential musicians and good friends Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jerry Garcia, to name a few.” 
 
 “Marty was the one who started the San Francisco scene,” says Bill Thompson, Balin’s roommate back in the mid-’60s and former manager of both Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship. 
 
 “Back in those days Marty was quite the businessman,” said Paul Kantner, who passed away in 2016. “He was the leader of the band on that level. He was the one who pushed us to do all the business stuff, orchestrating, thinking ahead, looking for managers and club opportunities. He was very good at it.” 
 
 Balin is survived by Susan, daughters Jennifer Edwards and Delaney Balin, and stepdaughters Rebekah Geier and Moriah Geier. 
 
 “Marty and I shared the deepest of love — he often called it Nirvana — and it was,” Susan Balin said in a statement. “But really, we were all touched by his love. His presence will be within my entire being forever.” ||||| Jefferson Airplane vocalist-guitarist Marty Balin, who co-founded the San Francisco psychedelic rock band in 1965 and played a crucial role in the creation of all their 1960s albums, including Surrealistic Pillow and Volunteers, died Thursday at the age of 76. Balin’s rep confirmed the musician’s death to Rolling Stone, though the cause of death is currently unknown. 
 
 “RIP Marty Balin, fellow bandmate and music traveler passed last night,” Jefferson Airplane bassist Jack Casady said in a statement. “A great songwriter and singer who loved life and music. We shared some wonderful times together. We will all miss you!!!!” 
 
 “Marty and I were young together in a time that defined our lives,” Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen wrote on his blog. “Had it not been for him, my life would have taken an alternate path I cannot imagine. He and Paul Kantner came together and like plutonium halves in a reactor started a chain reaction that still affects many of us today. It was a moment of powerful synchronicity. I was part of it to be sure, but I was not a prime mover. Marty always reached for the stars and he took us along with him.” 
 
 Born Martyn Jerel Buchwald, Balin was a struggling folk guitarist on the San Francisco scene when he formed a band with Paul Kantner after meeting the 12-string guitarist at a hootenanny. They met up with Kaukonen, Casady, drummer Skip Spence and singer Signe Toly Anderson, and cut their 1966 debut LP, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. They developed a strong following around the budding San Francisco rock scene, but became nationwide superstars in 1967 when Anderson left the group and was replaced by Grace Slick. 
 
 Balin co-wrote five songs on their breakthrough LP, Surrealistic Pillow, including “Comin’ Back to Me” and album opener “She Has Funny Cars,” and his tenor voice became a key component of their signature sound. He played with the group at all of its most famous gigs, including the 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock and Altamont. At the latter gig, Balin was brutally beaten by the Hells Angels after he dived into the audience to help an audience member in distress. “I woke up with all these boot marks all over my body,” he told Relix in 1993. “I just walked out there. I remember Jorma saying, ‘Hey, you’re a crazy son of a bitch.’ ” 
 
 A little over a year later, Balin quit the group. “I thought everybody [was] kind of an asshole,” he said earlier this year. “It was a period of cocaine then.…Everybody took cocaine. And people I would work with, they would yell at you and it got intense. The Airplane was on that kind of trip. You know, I personally just drank alcohol. But some of the chemicals made people crazy and very selfish, and it just wasn’t any fun to be around for me. So I bailed.” 
 
 Balin spent a few years managing rock bands in San Francisco, but he was pulled back into the group’s orbit by Kantner in 1974, though by that point Casady and Kaukonen had defected and the remaining members were billing themselves as Jefferson Starship. The offshoot band was incredibly successful and scored more hits than the original Airplane, including the Balin-penned “Miracles,” from Red Octopus, hitting Number Three in 1975. But by 1978, Balin grew tired of touring, especially since Slick’s alcohol issues caused many uneven performances, and he left the group for a solo career. In 1989, he participated in the short-lived Jefferson Airplane reunion tour and returned four years later to Jefferson Starship, finally leaving for good in 2008. 
 
 In 2016, Balin underwent open-heart surgery at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in New York. He later sued for medical malpractice, claiming negligence caused him a myriad of injuries, including a paralyzed vocal cord, bedsores, kidney damage, and the loss of his left thumb and half his tongue. ||||| Published on Sep 2, 2008 
 
 From the LP Surrealistic Pillow 
 
 
 
 The summer had inhaled and held its breath too long 
 
 The winter looked the same, as if it never had gone 
 
 And through an open window where no curtain hung 
 
 I saw you, I saw you, comin' back to me 
 
 
 
 One begins to read between the pages of a look 
 
 The shape of sleepy music, and suddenly you're hooked 
 
 Through the rain upon the trees, that kisses on the run 
 
 I saw you, I saw you, comin' back to me 
 
 
 
 You came to stay and live my way 
 
 Scatter my love like leaves in the wind 
 
 You always say you won't go away 
 
 But I know what it always has been, it always has been 
 
 
 
 A transparent dream beneath an occasional sigh 
 
 Most of the time I just let it go by 
 
 Now I wish it hadn't begun 
 
 I saw you, yes I saw you, comin' back to me 
 
 
 
 Strolling the hills overlooking the shore 
 
 I realize I've been here before 
 
 The shadow in the mist could have been anyone 
 
 I saw you, I saw you, comin' back to me 
 
 
 
 Small things like reasons are put in a jar 
 
 Whatever happened to wishes wished on a star? 
 
 Was it just something that I made up for fun? 
 
 I saw you, I saw you, comin' back to me
– A major figure in the emergence of psychedelic rock in the 1960s has died. Marty Balin, who co-founded Jefferson Airplane and played on and off with its later iteration, Jefferson Starship, died en route to the hospital in Tampa, Florida, at age 76, reports the New York Times. The cause of death wasn't immediately known. The Times calls Balin a "prime mover in the flowering of psychedelic rock in mid-1960s San Francisco," not only through the band he co-founded in 1965 but through a nightclub he owned called the Matrix. Rolling Stone has a detailed obituary on Balin's interesting career, noting that he was a struggling folk guitarist when he met another guitarist named Paul Kantner and decided to form a band. Other original Airplane members were guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, bassist Jack Casady, drummer Skip Spence, and singer Signe Toly Anderson, but the band didn't truly take off until Anderson left and was replaced by Grace Slick in 1967, notes Rolling Stone. Balin wrote or co-wrote many of the songs, and his "high and soulful" voice became a signature sound for the group, per Variety. (Here is "Comin' Back to Me.") But he was also a savvy businessman, as this old quote from the late Kanter shows: “He was the leader of the band on that level. He was the one who pushed us to do all the business stuff, orchestrating, thinking ahead, looking for managers and club opportunities. He was very good at it.”