Hot Tuna goes electric one more time, including Saturday concert in Burlington

Brent Hallenbeck, Burlington Free Press

September 13, 2023 at 5:50 PM·4 min read

The two core members of Hot Tuna – who’ve been playing music together for nearly seven decades – are billing the tour that brings them Saturday to Burlington as their last run of electric shows.

Bass player Jack Casady said the move toward unplugged-only performances has a lot to do with his growing fascination for playing acoustic bass guitar. The sound that instrument provides, he said, is the perfect complement to Jorma Kaukonen’s world-class fingerpicking guitar style.

Since forming Hot Tuna as a side project from the duo’s original band, San Francisco psychedelic-rockers Jefferson Airplane, Casady and Kaukonen have explored their hybrid of blues, rock and Americana in both electric and acoustic forms. They would even do so in the same night, as Hot Tuna demonstrated in two sets for the first-ever show at Higher Ground in South Burlington after the music venue moved there from Winooski in December 2004. (Higher Ground is presenting Saturday’s concert at the Flynn.)

Casady acknowledges that part of the reason for declaring their current tour as their final electric run has to do with concerns about their hearing. Casady is 79, Kaukonen is 83, and the duo that’s been playing together for 68 years wants to preserve the ears that are so key to the improvisational music they offer.

“That can sonically beat you up after a certain number of shows on the road,” Casady said of the electric concerts. “We didn’t want to find ourselves out there where it’s painful.”

Jack Casady, left, and Jorma Kaukonen of Hot Tuna

Bound by more than music

Casady spoke Monday with the Burlington Free Press from Fur Peace Ranch in Ohio, a music-instruction camp founded by Kaukonen and his wife, Vanessa. Casady arrived last week so the two could rehearse for the tour that starts Sept. 15 in Rochester, New York, and lands the next night in Burlington.

“Jorma and I rehearse more than we ever have in our lives right now,” according to Casady, who said they’ve been practicing six hours a day before percussionist Justin Guip joins the rehearsals. “Work and preparation and exercise, all of that helps you so you can do what you choose to do in life, no matter what.”

Casady’s exercise regimen includes plenty of bike riding, which helps with the stamina he needs for touring and playing. The long rehearsals help Casady and Kaukonen reacquaint themselves with each other’s styles after several months apart. That familiarity is key for a group that uses songs as a base from which to explore new avenues.

“There’s room to move around in there,” Casady said, “and you want to be alert and able to take advantage of that particular night’s feeling, that night’s audience.”

Casady and Kaukonen have been speaking the same musical language since boyhood in Washington, D.C. That gives them a leg-up that few musicians have, one honed by exploring music together in their formative years.

“As any kid knows during your junior-high, high-school years, the world is just beginning, developing and opening up for you, and quite often it’s a world of misunderstanding and strangeness. But there was a binding element there and a purpose,” Casady said. “It’s part of your foundation.”

Jack Casady, left, and Jorma Kaukonen as Hot Tuna Acoustic perform at The Hawaii Theater in Honolulu on July 5, 2019.

That binding involves more than just the songs they play, according to Casady.

“Our identity points in our relationship aren’t just tied to the music business,” he said. “It’s not just strangers coming together and forming a band, so to speak, and not having any other basis for a relationship.

“It’s really fascinating and I’m so grateful. You live longer and you appreciate how precious friendship is, and you’ve got to work at it,” Casady said. “We’re different people and we have different lives and whatnot. But when we share the time together, it’s easy.”

They expect to share the time together for years to come. As people age, according to Casady, they need to keep their bodies and minds healthy and engaged, and music is the best thing for accomplishing that.

“When you’re in the process of playing, you’re using your physical elements, all your sensibilities are tuned up and right at hand,” he said. “You’ve got to do things. There’s no such thing as retirement.”