Now before you think I'm some rocker dude let me correct you...I also LOVE "Earth" era Jefferson Starship and the 70's ballads that turned people's stomachs. I grew up the child of quasi-free love hippie-wannabees that love Jefferson Airplane and I freely admit Peter Wolf ruined the group circa "Knee Deep In the Hoopla" when Paul Kantner bailed (and rightfully so!). Grace Slick has rightfully sworn off any further reunions and tours and rightfully so. Rest on your wonderfully voiced laurels darling...you've earned it!


Not great, but some fantastic guitar   December 29, 2000
W. Thornton (St. Augustine, Florida USA)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful

Not quite as good as Freedom at Point Zero or Earth, but one person stands out on this album: Craig Chaquico. He is one of the most underrated guitarists of the last 30 years and boy does he shine. The lead harmonies on Be My Lady are absolutely unbelievable! Some of the best guitar work I have ever heard. Pete Sears, David Freiberg and Craig Chaquico emerge as the leaders on this album as Grace Slick and Kantner truly take a back seat. If you were old enough to remember some of the MTV videos from this album, you were lucky. They were quite good.


There are 6 Out of 9 Awesome Songs on This Album!   July 17, 2006
T. R. Rak
6 out of 8 found this review helpful

I never could understand why Jefferson Starship's 1982 work of art, "Winds of Change," didn't get the credit or the airplay it rightfully deserved/deserves. And then even FINDING this album (especially on CD) became a personal odyssey "mission impossible" quest in itself!

One need look no further than Amazon.Com to see how difficult it can be to secure a copy of this highly underrated masterwork from one of the most seminal rock outfits in music history.

Amazon lists "Winds of Change" as requiring 3 to 6 weeks for delivery, rather than the typical turnaround of "usually available within 24 hours." Why!?! "3 to 6 weeks" sometimes means - "not available at all," at least from my own personal experience with Amazon. I wait 3 to 6 weeks for my item, then I wait a few weeks more. Finally Amazon writes to me with regrets that, in fact, they cannot get me the pristine copy of whatever it is I have ordered in the first place. Like - "Total Bummmer, Dudes!"

Fortunately, Amazon now provides "Used" outlets, including the ability to obtain BRAND SPANKING NEW copies of CDs, DVDs, books and so on forth at sometimes WAY SIGNIFICANTLY reduced prices (hooray!), through third-party, independent vendors, working with Amazon. This is very, VERY GOOD news for us beleaguered buyers in quest of that elusive "media gem," whatever it happens to be. In fact, at last check, "Winds of Change" is currently available now, with a one-to-two business-day turnaround, from "8 used and new" sources independent of Amazon, but accessible (and purchasable) via Amazon's website. Yippee!

Because "Winds of Change" in my book is one of Starship's PREMIER albums of all time, regardless of what anyone else tells you. Whether it was poor marketing or whatever that tanked this brilliant creation, the fact remains: "W.O.C." is probably J.S.'s best kept secret. But I'm telling it to you now.

There are 6 fantastic, rocking, either pop-viable or downright jamming, tightly-written and exuberantly crafted tunes on this album, starting with the eponymous "Winds of Change." A CLASSIC song. Everybody I've played it for loves it (though it got zero play on radio), and Gracie Slick's voice never sounded better, or more powerful and lambent. This is quite simply, a progressive-rock masterpiece that builds to a climactic crescendo of guitars and Gracie's "take no prisoners" clarion vocal chords.

Next is "Keep on Dreamin," a very minor hit single for Starship. This is a great pop ditty, not in the same class as "Winds...," by any stretch of the imagination, but a decent enough song in its own right. Short, sweet, and suitable either for AOR or hit radio. It possesses an infectious quality about it which ends up making it irresistibly hummable!

Okay - fast forward to "Out of Control." Like its title says, this song is an orgiastic romp with Gracie sounding like she's been dipping into the "magic mushroom fondue" again. But it's a GREAT song, regardless - experimental and bold; brash and hard driving; rocking and contagious. Certainly a unique creative departure, and welcome addition to, Starship's collection, and an almost entirely forgotten work of mad genius to this day.

The rest of the GOODIES follow in quick succession. "Can't Find Love" is a progressive-rock gold nugget. I *LOVE* Craig Chaquico's guitars on this album, especially on songs like this one. His distortion level is "Goldilocks" - JUST RIGHT! And the engineers didn't bury his axe in the mix. You almost never think of Airplane, let alone Starship, as a "heavy metal" band, but this album (perhaps the reason why it went so underplayed), proves the group CAN JAM, and they do it here all over the place.

Next up, my ABSOLUTE FAVE when I received this album as an LP for Christmas in 1982: "Black Widow." With Craig's guitars going ALL OUT on this rock classic, and with Gracie's voice so clear and so seductive - by jiminey - you just want to "climb into her web" with her (as the dominatrix, deadly spider) while she's inviting the listener (you!) to do just that in her lyrics. A combination of staccato, stop-time, heavy-amped guitar riffs (think Canadian power trio Rush during their best "metallurgical" work of the 70s), softened by rich refrain, full-out group harmonies, laced with Gracie's interspersed verse lines: all come-hither "take it sucker" vocals that conjure images of the star dressed in a Corinthian-leather, black-and-red teddy, one leg kneeling on a bed, the other planted firmly on the floor in stilletoed high-heel, with a greased cat-o-nine-tails clenched in her fist, whose wrist is wrapped in a platinum bracelet beset with steel spikes! "Take it, Sucker" INDEED! Would that more radio stations had, because "Black Widow" is as good as anything by Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, Kansas or Angel, only with a female lead vocal. This is arguably the BEST song on this album, or TIED for best with "Winds of Change."

Finally, "I Came Back From the Jaws of the Dragon" hearkens us to "Red Octopus" days and the very best of those, with its "Play on Love" feel and "group chant" ethos. This song also rocks and once again, features Gracie Slick in superb form. In fact, one can easily argue that "Winds of Change" IS Gracie's album, with Craig bringing out the powerful beauty, the best AND the BEAST in her.

To wrap this review up, ANY rock-and-roll album, and I mean ANY, that has 6 out of 9 great, listenable, well-written songs and superb production value to boot - DESERVES a place in ANY rock fan's collection. If this is the first time you ever heard of "Winds of Change" by Jefferson Starship, you may be forgiven. But to ignore this review and thereby to bypass this album is a mistake you render at your audial peril.

Get this album now! It will be nigh IMPOSSIBLE, with 6 of 9 stellar rock pieces, and arguably some of Gracie's FINEST work, and arguably some of Craig's BEST of his best work on display as well - for you to NOT listen raptly and intently, with headphones tightly (but comfortably) enconsced over your "salivating ear drums" (talk about a mixed metaphor there), imagining that you're in a fast sports convertible (passenger seat preferred), top down, riding fast with the wind in your hair and lightning coming up over the horizon on a thunderclouded midwest plain, jamming to "The Winds of Change."