Jefferson Airplane, Great Society, 1966

This early Wes Wilson poster shows off his focus on lettering as the object and central visual in the poster – in fact its all lettering which seems to warp out from a black industrial rubber band or balloon and grabs the viewer by the collar and shouts out the event. The expandable rubberized lettered is bounded neither by itself nor the margins of the red background of the poster.

Interestingly, The Great Society was featuring Grace Slick as lead vocalist at this time and they also had written and was playing both White Rabbit and Someone to Love.  Jefferson Airplane and Great Society were occasionally on the same bill together and when original Airplane vocalist Signe Anderson quit the band in October to take care of her baby, this left the opening for Grace Slick to replace her on October 16, 1966. Slick brought both hit songs to the Jefferson Airplane (Someone to Love was renamed Somebody to Love) and they became the Airplane’s biggest hits. First Printing, signed by Wilson – a real classic from1966