Spencer Dryden (April 7, 1938 – January 11, 2005) was an American musician best known as drummer for Jefferson Airplane and New Riders of the Purple Sage. He also played with The Dinosaurs, and The Ashes (later known as The Peanut Butter Conspiracy).
Dryden did not participate in Jefferson Airplane’s 1989 reunion. In 1996, Dryden was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with the rest of Jefferson Airplane, playing with the band for the first time since 1970. He joined the group onstage for the last time in 2003, with the Jefferson Starship Galactic Reunion.
He lived in relative obscurity, reportedly living in a small house on rented property with a few acres in Penngrove, California. He needed hip replacement and heart surgeries in the few years before his death. In 2004, several musicians, led by Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead and Warren Haynes (Gov’t Mule and the Allman Brothers Band), raised US$36,000 to help pay Dryden’s medical bills. He also had lost his home due to a fire in 2003. Later, in 2004, he was diagnosed with cancer. The benefit re-kindled Spencer’s friendship with Jefferson Airplane band member Jorma Kaukonen, who remembered him fondly for the way he said, Aww, MAN!! It was not until 2005 that Kaukonen became aware that Spencer was the nephew of Charlie Chaplin. Spencer’s last public appearance was with Jefferson Airplane band members in 2004, at a DVD party for the release of the group’s Fly documentary
Dryden died from colon cancer (intestinal cancer which spread to his liver) on January 11, 2005. Married three times, he was survived by his three sons, Jeffrey, Jesse, and Jackson Dryden, six grandchildren, and his mother, Alice Chapple Judd, who died on December 25, 2005 at the age of 94