Being born just a tad too late, I once heard it said that Jefferson Airplane added Grace Slick to the band to compete with Christy McVie of Fleetwood Mac. If that is true, how come I only know one Jefferson Airplane/Starship hit song where she is lead vocal? 
(i.e., White Rabbit) I was hoping the SDrockers could set me dire straight! (ha-ha…)
You’ve never heard “Somebody to Love?” How about “We built this City?”
Grace Slick was hired by Jefferson Airplane from another San Fancisco band after theirt original singer quit. She was the lead singer and fronted the band in concert. She recorded many, many songs.
Oh, yeah…ok two. But does she even appear with Band in “Miracles”, “With Your Love”" and many more? How long did she stay around?
Christine Perfect joined Fleetwood Mac in 1970. Grace Slick joined Jefferson Airplane in 1966. So whoever “once said” is full of shit. As for lead vocals, what about “Somebody To Love,” “Lather,” and countless others. You just haven’t been paying attention. Besides, Airplane really didn’t have that many “hits.” Grace also traded lead vocals with Marty Balin. The two were absolutely mesmerizing live. Listen to Bless Its Pointed Little Head sometime. Or any version of “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds.”
Grace retired from music in 1988. So she spent 22 years with Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship.
Both of those songs were released by Jefferson Starship, not Jefferson Airplane.
Grace Slick replaced Signe Anderson with the Jefferson Airplane (Anderson was on their first album) and sang on their first big hit, “Somebody to Love” as well as “White Rabbit.” She sang lead (though not on every song – both Marty Balin and Paul Kantner sang for the group) for the Airplane until well after they became Jefferson Starship.
Personally, I think that Slick is one of the top five female vocalists in rock; Christie McVie wouldn’t make my top 20.
Gracie Slick was, for me, the voice of The Summer of Love.
Unlike Janis, she had the ability to survive all that love. Heh.
I think rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner has said he always liked to have both a male and female vocalist in a band for the way they complement each other. Even today the version of JS that Kantner leads has a female singer. And Kantner did have a real dominating personality. I’m not sure how much singer Marty Balin liked having to share vocals with another singer and he did leave JA/JS several times (lots of people leaving and coming in their history).
For her part Grace Wing Slick didn’t particularly care for rock and roll growing up, thinking it too childish. But she became interested when she saw a picture of Marty Balin in a newspaper and started a band (Great Society) with her husband. How much truth is there that original female singer Signe Anderson left because she had a baby has been debated. She was very skeptical of some of the management deals the band signed and had legal battles for 20 years as a result.
One story that appeared in the mid80s in “Trouser Press” magazine was the band was kind of scared to ask Grace into the band. They were like schoolboys bashfully asking a pretty girl out. So they got bassist Jack Casady to do it since he was the newest member.
One thing you had with San Francisco bands of the 1960s was mixed feelings to the commercial side of the music business. As others have said the idea they were competing with Fleetwood Mac/Chrsitine Perfect is flat out wrong for several reasons. But they may have felt having an attractive, outspoken, well-educated woman singer would help get publicity as well. Certainly in the film “Monterrey Pop” the camera focuses on her.
For a good history see the Jeff Tamarkin book “Got a Revolution”.
The OP made me laugh; where do these stories come from? Vocally, at least, Grace Slick is to Christine McVie what a what an Indy car is to a Yugo, though in terms of overall talent the comparison is less laughable.
Might this be some sort of conflation with the somewhat parallel histories of Jefferson Airplane and Fairport Convention? Not long after they formed, Fairport acquired a female singer, Judy Dyble, and their sound was initially quite similar to that of the early Airplane (probably consciously so). Later, they replaced Dyble with Sandy Denny, a singer who was at least the equal of (and IMO superior to) Slick.
As long as I don’t have to explain why Grace Slick agreed to record the album “Knee-deep in the Hoopla”. We still call that the “We’re Holding Grace Slick’s Family Hostage To Make Her Record This Album” album.
Actually, I credit that album to the fact that Grace was sober. 
kelly, Sandy Denny was a far superior vocalist than Grace, even at the latter’s peak. Of that there is no doubt.
Yeah, I know. I was just being politic. Sandy is my favorite singer, male or female, ever.
And Annie Haslam of Renaissance was superior to either of them.
But she didn’t join until 1971, and Sandy Denny didn’t join the Strawbs until 1967 and Janis Joplin didn’t join Big Brother until 1966. (Little known fact: she and Jorma Kaukonen recorded together in 1964. That may be why the Airplane wanted a female lead singer in the first place.)
Grace Slick was in Great Society in 1965, as early as Signe Anderson was in the Airplane. Anderson’s not much of a presence on their first album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. The radio airplay they got (“Blues from an Airplane,” “It’s No Secret,” “Come Up the Years”) all had male leads.
Slick wasn’t the greatest singer but she had charisma to spare, and she blew Anderson off the stage and could out-perform both Balin and Kantner. Plus she could write, “Lather” being another classic she wrote as well as sang. It’s from Crown of Creation, where she also wrote and sang “Greasy Heart” and sang David Crosby’s “Triad.” That’s as good as it gets for contributions to an album by a group that had three lead singers and three lead songwriters and covered songs by others and did lots of instrumentals by the non-singers.
She was the first big female star in a rock group and she deserved to be.
Christine McVie is interesting because she’s one of the first females, if not the first, to be just one of the guys in a major group. She sang, she wrote, she played an instrument, all without being featured. That’s still rare.
QFT.
I don’t even think Halsam was *Renaissance’s *best female singer – I prefer Jane Relf.
And Jacqui McShee blows them both out of the water (for that sort of voice, of course – Slick is nothing like them).
Amazing voice. And really easy on the eyes.
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Grace Slick brought along “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” from the Great Society to the Jefferson Airplane. According to some stories, the members of the Jefferson Airplane made it a condition of her joining that she bring along those songs with her.
If you don’t have it already…
Jane’s voice was interesting, but Annie’s is purer.
For me, the phrase that sums up that period succinctly is Signe’s verse, starting at 00:55. “Let’s Get Together” is covered by countless bands, but the version from Jefferson Airplane Takes Off just perfectly encapsulates the start of the era, when anything seemed possible.
Then Grace sends everybody into the ozone with Morning Maniac Music. 
Battle of Evermore best work Robert Plant and Sandy Denny ever did. Brillant moment in rock’s history.