Papa John Creach was born on this day in 1917 in Beaver Falls, PA, 26 years before Joe Namath’s birth in the same town.

After a varied early career as a violinist/fiddler, Creach wound up in the San Francisco-based world of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, and kept making distinguished contributions until his death in 1994.

Here’s Papa John Creach with Hot Tuna performing “John’s Other.” Pretty amazing, and good wakeup music.

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Ed Kilgore, a contributing editor of the Washington Monthly, is a columnist for New York.