NEW YORK: Paul Kantner, the co-founder of Jefferson Airplane whose psychedelic sound and free-spirited mindset helped define 1960s counterculture in San Francisco, has died. He was 74.

With hits such as Somebody to Love and White Rabbit, Jefferson Airplane wrote anthems for the hippie movement and the memorable Summer of Love in which young people took over the US city in 1967.

While vocalists Grace Slick and Marty Balin were the public faces of Jefferson Airplane, Kantner, a guitarist, was often considered the creative force of the band as he brought a new urgency to the folk scene from which he emerged.

“He was the first guy I picked for the band and he was the first guy who taught me how to roll a joint,” Balin wrote on Facebook of his death.

“And although I know he liked to play the devil’s advocate, I am sure he has earned his wings now,” he said.

Kantner, who suffered intermittent health problems for years, died of multiple organ failure following a heart attack, the San Francisco Chronicle quoted his longtime publicist and friend Cynthia Bowman as saying.

The Recording Academy, which is due to award Jefferson Airplane a lifetime achievement Grammy this year, in a statement mourned Kantner as “a true icon” of the 1960s music scene. Jefferson Airplane was one of the first bands to frequent Bill Graham’s Fillmore club, the epicentre of the hippie music scene that also brought in the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin and The Doors.

As icons of the counterculture, Jefferson Airplane were headliners at two emblematic festivals of the era — Monterey, where the band turned its performance into a live album, and Woodstock, where the band’s set

due for Saturday evening wound up taking place at 8:00 am the next morning.