| Name: | Joseph Edward Covington |
| Born: | June 27, 1945, East Conemaugh, PA, |
| Siblings: | Five, two older and three younger. |
Self-taught in percussion at the age of 10, Joey Covington started out playing drums in polka bands. By the time he was 14, he had graduated to backing strippers at a club in Johnstown, PA.
Moving to New York in 1965, he got his professional break backing singer Danny Apollinar, before joining the Fenways in 1966. He then moved to California, where he met fiddler Papa John Creach in the summer of 1967. Despite their 28-year age difference, they became lifelong friends.
In California, he joined a band called Tsong, and sometime around 1968, met Marty Balin and Bill Thompson. This meeting resulted in Joey being invited to play and record with Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady leading to the formation, in 1969, of Hot Tuna. He later guested on Volunteers, and sometimes drummed onstage alongside Spencer Dryden. When Spencer was asked quit the Airplane in 1970, Joey was the natural successor. Unfortunately, this was the time the band began to fragment into its various factions. Quitting Hot Tuna in 1970, following a dispute which also ended Marty Balin's brief tenure as a member of that band, he later quit the Airplane sometime about April 1972.
He only appears on one full Jefferson Airplane album, "Bark", on which he co-wrote two songs including the bands last chart single "Pretty As You Feel". He also played the drums on Paul Kantner's "Blows Against The Empire". By the time of the band's last studio album "Long John Silver", he was involved in a great many other projects, and only appears on two songs. Unhappy with his position within the band, he sat out the final tour, and , although still officially a band member at the time, does not appear on the live "Thirty Seconds Over Winterland".
Following his departure from the band, he appeared on Peter Kaunonen's "Black Kangeroo", before forming his own band, Fat Fandango. Following the failiure of this band, he faded from view, briefly re-surfacing as co-writer of "With Your Love" in 1976.
Select Discography:
The Fenways - I'm A Mover. (1966, Single)
Jefferson Airplane - Volunteers. (1969, guest appearance)
Jefferson Airplane - Mexico/Have You Seen The Saucers? (1970, Single)
Paul Kantner - Blows Against The Empire. (1970)
Jefferson Airplane - Bark. (1971)
Jefferson Airplane - Long John Silver. (1972, some songs only)
Peter Kaukonen - Black Kangeroo. (1972)
Joe E. Covington's Fat Fandango.(1973)
Trivia:
He was responsible for introducing Papa John Creech to the band.