Paul Kanter, co-founder of Jefferson Airplane, is dead at the age of 74.

He passed on Thursday in San Francisco from organ failure and septic shock, after falling ill earlier in the week.

Jefferson Airplane played their first show at San Francisco's The Matrix nightclub in 1965, releasing their first album The Jefferson Airplane Takes Off a year later.

In 1966, Grace Slick replaced Signe Toly Anderson on vocals, and JA released their second album, Surrealistic Pillow, to commercial and critical success in 1966.

It wasn't Kanter's first brush with mortality, as he survived a motorcycle accident in the 1960s and a cerebral hemorrhage in 1980. Last year, he had a heart attack.

Kantner was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. He's survived by his three children - sons Gareth and Alexander, and daughter China.