Jefferson Starship: Find Your Way Back 'Live' on Fridays TV -1981 (My "Stereo Studio Sound" Re-Edit)

Jefferson Starship: Find Your Way Back 'Live' on Fridays TV -1981 (My "Stereo Studio Sound" Re-Edit)

Released in 1981 as part of Modern Times, “Find Your Way Back” represents the zenith of the heavier-rocking period between the Marty Balin-era Jefferson Starship and the subsequent pop-focused Starship — with composer Craig Chaquico’s electric front and center. It reached No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1981.

Chaquico, like Paul Kantner and the returning Grace Slick, had been part of Jefferson Starship since its early-1970s formation. They were known quantities. The question remained, in just their second album-length collaboration, how new frontman Mickey Thomas would cope with this edgier sound.

Remember, he’d joined Jefferson Starship after rising to fame in blues and soul circles, notably voicing the Elvin Bishop favorite “Fooled Around and Fell in Love.”

“I didn’t know if it would work,” Micky Thomas admits, in an exclusive Something Else! Sitdown. “But I was flattered to get the call, and I at least owed them the courtesy of going over there and seeing what’s up. [Laughs.] We had several meetings, and couple of jam sessions. I was still rather hesitant. A few months went by, really. Finally, I thought: ‘As crazy as this is, and as unlikely as it would be that this would work, there’s something there.’ Where they were coming from, and where I was then, it was a meeting of styles that created something original.”

It did. “Find Your Way Back” would become a No. 3 hit on the newly minted Billboard Mainstream Rock charts, and stuck with Chaquico long after his turn-of-the-1990s departure from the group. In fact, the guitarist would give the song a complete deconstruction on his celebrated sophomore solo release — helping Acoustic Planet to a Grammy nomination for best new age album in 1995.