Marty Balin

Born Martyn Jerel Buchwald in Cincinnati, Ohio on January 30, 1942, he came to California with his family at age four, settling in the central part of the state before moving to San Francisco. Always interested in the arts, Balin was a dancer and a sculptor as well as a singer. He performed in a local production of West Side Story in the early 60s and when the popular singer Johnny Mathis heard him sing, he encouraged the teenager to pursue that course professionally.

In 1962, Martyn Buchwald became Marty Balin and recorded two 45 RPM singles for a small record label called Challenge, which were unsuccessful. That led to a stint with a folk group called the Town Criers in 1963-64 and, with the invasion of the Beatles and their fellow Brits, a dream to open a rock'n'roll club and start a band.

By 1965 Balin had accomplished both goals: he was a partner in the Matrix in San Francisco, and had assembled Jefferson Airplane, the band that would open the club and go on to bring worldwide popularity to the San Francisco scene. Fronting the Airplane, and combining his still-spellbinding, silky voice with the icy sound of Grace Slick's and the folky Paul Kantner's, Balin became one of the best-loved voices of the 60's.

When he left the Airplane in April 1971, dejected after the death of his friend Janis Joplin and the shift in the tone of the entire scene, Balin kept a low profile for a few years. By the mid-'70s, though, he'd turned up in the reconstituted Jefferson Starship, a revolving door of musicians that yielded lesser returns musically with each passing year.

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