Hot Tuna's first album made after the breakup of
Jefferson Airplane found
Jorma Kaukonen taking a firm hand: he's the author of nine out of ten songs. The walking tempos and familiar soaring, psychedelic guitar solos are in place, but much of the music is given over to
Kaukonen's reflective lyrics, sung in his matter-of-fact voice, and there are strings on a couple of tracks. The group's fans, devoted as they were to its extended versions of blues standards, seem to have been unimpressed: the album was
Hot Tuna's lowest-charting among those released during their 1970-1978 heyday. Probably a lack of enthusiasm at RCA, due to the demise of
Jefferson Airplane, didn't help in the album's promotion, either. ~ William Ruhlmann