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From their days playing together as teenagers to their current acoustic and electric blues, probably no one has more consistently led American music for the last 50 years -- yes! -- than Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, the founders and continuing core members of Hot Tuna.
While in The Jefferson Airplane, putting together the soundtrack of the 60s, the pair remained loyal to the blues, jazz, bluegrass, and folk influences of the small clubs and larger venues they had learned from years before.
For the last few years, Jorma and Jack have been joined in most of their Hot Tuna performances by the mandolin virtuoso Barry Mitterhoff. A veteran of bluegrass, Celtic, folk, and rock-influenced bands including "Tony Trischka and Skyline" and "Bottle Hill," Barry has found a new voice in working with Hot Tuna, and the fit has been good -- watching them play, it's as if he's been there from the beginning and they're all having the time of their lives.
Beginning in 2004, Hot Tuna returned to some of its own roots by adding an electric set to their acoustic one. For the electric sets, they are joined by Erik Diaz , a sharp young second-generation drummer with the energy, talent, and skill to match anything that Jack and Jorma -- once famous for working drummers nearly to death -- throw at him.
While the days of the six-hour uninterrupted sets are long over, Erik does much to help rekindle the feeling that permeated the legendary Hot Tuna concerts of decades ago. It is in the electric sets, too, that Barry brings out a wide array of electric mandolins and similar instruments that most people have probably never seen or heard before. It's all a real treat.
Jorma and Jack certainly could not have imagined, let alone predicted, where playing would take them. It's been a long and fascinating road to numerous exciting destinations. Two things have never changed: They still love to play as much as they did as kids in Washington D.C., and there are still many, many exciting miles yet to travel on their musical odyssey.
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