NEW YORK (AFP).- One of the original singers of iconic hippie-era band Jefferson Airplane has died -- by coincidence, on the same day as the group's co-founder and guitarist.

Signe Toly Anderson, who was in the first lineup of the San Francisco group, died on Thursday at age 74 from undisclosed causes, a band member said.

The news came out over the weekend, after the announcement that fellow founding member Paul Kantner had died, also on Thursday at age 74.

"One sweet Lady has passed on. I imagine that she and Paul woke up in heaven and said, 'Hey, what are you doing here? Let's start a band,'" singer Marty Balin wrote on Facebook.

Compared with Kantner, Anderson's tenure in Jefferson Airplane was brief.

She appeared on the band's 1966 debut album "Jefferson Airplane Takes Off," taking lead vocals on a cover of "Chauffeur Blues."

She left afterward to raise a child, not believing that parenthood would be easy while touring with the famously free-spirited band.

She was replaced by Grace Slick, who became the identifiable voice of Jefferson Airplane with songs such as "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" that served as a soundtrack for the 1960s counterculture.



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