#22: Find Your Way Back by Jefferson Starship

City: Saskatoon, SK
Radio Station: CKOM
Peak Month: June 1981
Peak Position in Saskatoon ~ #3
Peak Position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #29
YouTube: “Find Your Way Back”
Lyrics: “Find Your Way Back”

Jefferson Starship morphed from the Jefferson Airplane in 1974. By 1981, the lineup in the band consisted of lead vocalist and piano player Grace Slick; Keyboard and bass guitarist David Freiberg; Paul Kantner on banjo, harmonica, rhythm guitar and synthesizers; Craig Chaquico on guitar; Pete Sears on keyboards and guitar; Mickey Thomas on lead and backing vocals; and Ansley Dunbar on drums and percussion. Paul Kantner was born in San Francisco in 1941. His mother died when he was eight, and his father sent him to see the circus instead of allowing him to attend the funeral. Kantner was sent to a Catholic Military boarding school. In the face of his strict upbringing, Paul Kantner became interested in Pete Seeger, folk and protest songs. He was one of the co-founders of Jefferson Airplane in 1965.

Grace Barnett Wing was born in 1939 in Highland Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. In August 1961, Wing married Gerald “Jerry” Slick, an aspiring filmmaker. After the couple briefly moved away from San Francisco, Grace Slick worked as a model at an I. Magnin department store for three years. Slick also started composing music, including a contribution to a short film by Jerry Slick. In August 1965, Slick read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the newly formed Jefferson Airplane. Despite being situated in the growing musical center of San Francisco, Slick only half-heartedly considered music for a profession until she watched the band live at The Matrix. As a result, Slick became a vocalist and guitar player in a group called the Great Society, accompanied by husband Jerry Slick on drums,  Jerry’s brother Darby Slick on guitar, and David Miner on bass guitar. On October 15, 1965, the band made its debut performance at a venue known as the Coffee Gallery. Soon after, Slick composed “White Rabbit”. She also sang “Somebody To Love” written by Darby Slick. Live performances of these and other material got the Great Society rave reviews.

When Jefferson Airplane vocalist, Signe Toly Anderson, decided to leave the band in 1966 to raise her first child. Touring with Jefferson Airplane had become unmanageable. As a result, Grace Slick was invited to join the band. Jefferson Airplane had released the folk-rock album Jefferson Airplane Takes Off in 1966. A single titled “Come Up The Years” peaked at #18 in San Francisco and #22 in Buffalo. The band with Grace Slick as the lead singer performed in Vancouver (BC) on November 9, 1966 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Jefferson Airplane released the iconic album Surrealistic Pillow contained the hit single in the spring of 1967 titled “Somebody To Love”. It climbed to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, #4 in Vancouver (BC) and #2 in Edmonton (AB). While the single was on the CFUN chart in Vancouver, Jefferson Airplane performed in concert at the Vancouver Trips Festival at the Richmond Arena on May 27, 1967. The Magic Fern, the Painted Ship and the Collectors also performed. Two weeks later, the Jefferson Airplane appeared in concert at the Monterey International Pop Festival. The Jefferson Airplane also appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In June 1967, they performed at the Monterey Pop Festival.

A second single from the album, “White Rabbit”, peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also climbed to #1 in Vancouver for two weeks in July 1967. In August 1967, the Jefferson Airplane performed two concerts in Montreal, one of these at the Youth Pavilion at Expo ’67.

Jefferson Airplane at Expo ’67 Youth Pavilion

In the fall of 1967, the band released another album with the single “Ballad Of You & Me & Pooneil”. Jefferson Airplane went on to perform at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in August 1969. In December 1969, they appeared at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival where Hell’s Angels security knifed 18-year-old Meredith Hunter who died during the Rolling Stones set.

In 1974, when Jefferson Starship emerged from the splintering of Jefferson Airplane, the newly reformed band became part of the soundtrack of the mid-to-late seventies with “Miracles”, “Count On Me”, “Runaway” and “Jane”.

Craig Chaquico was born in 1954 in Sacramento, California. He learned guitar after he was in a car accident at the age of twelve. He joined Jefferson Starship in 1974.

Pete Sears was born in 1948 in Bromley, Kent, England. He was with the blues band Sons of Fred starting in 1964. He moved on to the beat-psychedelic rock band Fleur De Lys. He was a session musician on many recordings. This included the Rod Stewart hits “Maggie May” and “Reason To Believe”. Sears joined Jefferson Starship in 1974.

David Freiberg was born in 1938 in Boston. Classically trained in violin and viola, Freiberg began his career moonlighting as a coffeehouse singer-songwriter (playing acoustic guitar) during the folk music revival while working for a railroad. For a while, he shared a house in Venice, California, with David Crosby and Paul Kantner, before being briefly jailed for possession of marijuana. Following his release in 1965, Freiberg co-founded Quicksilver Messenger Service. He left the band in September 1971 to serve another prison sentence for possession of marijuana. He was invited to join Jefferson Airplane in 1972. When the band morphed into Jefferson Starship in 1974, Freiberg remained part of the lineup.

Mickey Thomas was born in Cairo, Georgia, in 1949. He was inspired to pursue a career in music after attending a Beatles concert in 1965. He was a member of a number of bands until he joined the Elvin Bishop Group in 1974. He performed lead vocals for the 1976 international hit single “Fooled Around And Fell In Love”. He was invited to join Jefferson Starship in 1979.

In 1981, the band released their seventh studio album since 1974 titled Modern Times. The debut single from the album was “Find Your Way Back”.

“Find Your Way Back” is a song about a guy wresting with the choice to leave the woman in his life. He “packed up and left on his own.” Since then he says, “I seem to find love where I ramble.” A voice inside of him wonders why he had to leave and says “find your way back to her heart.” But another voice tells him, “I know it’s too late now. But I wish I could go back in time.” Which voice inside will prevail? Will he turn around, go back, and discover if she wants him back?

“Find Your Way Back” was primarily written by Craig Chaquico.

“Find Your Way Back” reached #1 in Kansas City (MO), Pittsburgh, #3 in Richmond (IN), #4 in Caribou (ME), #5 in Peoria (IL), and Syracuse (NY), #8 in San Francisco, and #9 in Saskatoon (SK).

Jefferson Starship released several more albums until it disbanded in 1984. From the ashes came Starship, with Grace Slick and Mickey Thomas sharing lead vocals. Other members of the band were Pete Sears, Craig Chaquico, and Donny Baldwin (who had joined Jefferson Starship in 1982 on drums). Starship managed to score three number-one hits: “We Built This City”, “Sara”, and “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”, and another Top Ten hit titled “It’s Not Over (‘Til It’s Over)”.

Starship continues to perform in concert. The only remaining original member from this iteration of the band is Mickey Thomas. Nearly thirty musicians have been part of the lineup in Starship since its inception in 1984. All but Thomas were gone from Starship by 1990. Thomas has separately released six solo albums between 1976 and 2024.

After he left Starship in 1990, Craig Chaquico released a series of solo albums. The first of these was Acoustic Highway in 1993. His eleventh solo album, Fire Red Moon, was released in 2012. In addition, he was a session musician with the smooth jazz group 3rd Force who released five albums with Chaquico between 1994 and 2002. He also was a guest musician on two Paul Kantner-Grace Slick albums in the early 70s, and a solo album by Grace Slick in 1973.

Grace Slick has released four studio albums as an independent artist between 1973 and 1984. When she sang lead on “We Built This City” with Starship, she was the oldest female vocalist to have a chart-topping pop hit, then 46-years-of-age. She broke her own record when “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” topped the pop chart in 1987 when Slick was 47 years old. Slick retired from music in 1990, but continues to be active in visual arts. In 1996, Slick was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Jefferson Airplane. In 1998, she published Somebody To Love?: A Rock and Roll Memoir. 

After David Freiberg left the band in 1985 over artistic differences when the band chose to record “We Built This City”, he built and operated a recording studio in Marin County, California. In 2005, Freiberg rejoined the reformed Jefferson Starship and remains part of that band (as Mickey Thomas remains part of the ongoing Starship).

Paul Kantner led a reformed Jefferson Starship from 1992 until his death in 2016. He died at the age of 74, after a multiple organ failure after he had a heart attack.

Pete Sears Sears became involved with human rights issues in Central America during the 1980s, and led a highly successful radio drive to raise food and clothing for refugees from the civil wars of Guatemala and El Salvador sheltering in the San Francisco Bay area. In the early 1990s, Pete Sears played keyboards with San Francisco-based psychedelic, jazz, rock band ZERO featuring guitarist Steve Kimock. From 1992 to 2001, Sears played keyboards with Jefferson Airplane’s Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady in Hot Tuna. Pete Sears has shared the stage with artists like Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers, Los Lobos, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Elvis Costello, Paul Butterfield, Levon Helm, the Grateful Dead, David Crosby, and Carlos Santana, among others.

May 13, 2026
Ray McGinnis

References:
Colin Stutz, “Paul Kantner, Jefferson Airplane Co-Founder & Guitarist, Dies at 74,” Billboard, January 28, 2016.
Grace Slick and Andrea Cagan, Somebody To Love?: A Rock and Roll Memoir, Grand Central Publishing, 1998.
“Craig Chaquico Reunited with Long Lost 1959 Les Paul Sunburst that was Stolen during Famous Riot at Jefferson Starship Concert in Summer of 1978,” Albright Entertainment Group, February 21, 2017.
Joshua Rotter, “Rock legend Pete Sears of Moonalice on Jimi, Grace, Jerry, and hitting that psychedelic groove,” April 15, 2022.
“Summer of Love: 40 Years Later / David Freiberg,” SF Gate, May 20, 2007.
Joe Miller, “Mickey Thomas (Starship) Interview,”  Defenders of the Faith, August 2, 2024.
“Grace Slick on sex, drugs and the Jefferson Airplane: ‘I was sober in the 80s. That was a mistake,'” Jeffersonstarship.com.

CKOM 1250-AM Saskatoon (SK) | June 17, 1981