Marty Balin, founder of Jefferson Airplane, dies

New York — Marty Balin, a patron of the 1960s “San Francisco Sound” both as founder and lead singer of the Jefferson Airplane and co-owner of the club where the Airplane and other bands performed, has died. He was 76.

Balin died Thursday in Tampa, Fla., on the way to the hospital, spokesman Ryan Romenesko said. The cause of death was not immediately available.

Balin, who underwent emergency heart surgery in 2016, sued a New York hospital earlier this year, saying a tracheotomy he had at the time paralyzed a vocal cord and caused other damage.

“We knew he had some health problems, but he really didn’t talk about it at all and we never pressed him,” fellow Jefferson Airplane founding member Jorma Kaukonen said following a show with his band Hot Tuna on Friday night in Massachusetts. “His passing to me at least was sudden and unexpected.

“He was certainly one of the greatest voices of my time,” Kaukonen continued. “His intense commitment to song and music, it just never abated.”

The dark-eyed, baby-faced Balin was an ex-folk musician who formed the Airplane in 1965 and within two years was at the heart of a nationwide wave that briefly rivaled the Beatles’ influence and even helped inspire the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper” album.

The Airplane was the breakout act among such San Francisco-based artists as the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, many of whom played early shows at the Matrix, a ballroom Balin helped run and for which the Airplane served as house band.

The Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.