Music: Spirit of '70

Music: Spirit of '70

http://www.pacificsun.com/news/show_story.php?id=1999&e=y

Influential eco-themed album by West Coast band gets timely reissue

by Greg Cahill
July 27, 2010

It's an album you might wish wasn't so damn relevant.

The Gulf of Mexico is a toxic stew of oil, chemical dispersant and
dead fish. And "Nature's Way," the cautionary tale from Spirit's
newly reissued 1970 psychedelic album Twelve Dreams of Dr.
Sardonicus, echoes that haunting refrain, "It's nature's way of
telling you, something's wrong."

Forty years after it's release, the Sundazed label has reissued a
hi-def LP edition of Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus (Epic/Legacy),
out-of-print on vinyl for two decades (and a better use of petroleum
products than to kill sea turtles).

The LP, a loose-knit sci-fi concept album, became the best-selling
album by one of the best, most eclectic and least appreciated West
Coast bands of the 1960s and '70s rock era. Neil Young cohort David
Briggs produced the record. The album spawned the Top 100 hit "Animal
Zoo," a social commentary on civilization's thin veneer, as well as
the classic-rock radio staple "Nature's Way." Spirit guitarist and
boy genius Randy California penned "Nature's Way" in San Francisco
one afternoon while the band waited to perform at the Fillmore Auditorium.

That stark environmental anthem coincided with the inaugural Earth
Day celebration, becoming the first pop song to seriously address
concerns about pollution and ecological disaster.

The album presaged the glam rock of Marc Bolan and T.Rex and
continues to have an impact: Walter Becker of Steely Dan, who shared
an apartment building with Randy California, has credited the Spirit
guitarist's bluesy style as a major influence and has noted that
Spirit's jazz-inflected prog-rock paved the way for Steely Dan's
distinct 1970s pop sound (many have noted the similarity between the
piano figure that opens "Space Child" and the intro to Steely Dan's hit "FM").

More recently, the lo-fi indie-rock icon Sam Beam of Iron & Wine
shaped part of his song "Wolves" after "Prelude­Nothing to Hide,"
from Twelve Dreams, and hip-hop star Common and rocker Pink have
sampled Spirit recordings.

Five years after its release, and with the original lineup split up,
the album went gold. That lineup was a musically diverse bunch. Ed
Cassidy, who was guitarist Randy California's step-father, had played
drums for Thelonious Monk, Roland Kirk and other jazz greats. He was
a founding member­along with Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder­of the Rising
Sons. Keyboardist John Locke also had strong jazz roots. And vocalist
and percussionist Jay Ferguson was classically trained and immersed
in bluegrass before turning to rock and then film and TV composing
(most recently, he wrote the theme to the hit TV series "The Office").

At 15, Randy California (nee Randy Craig Wolfe) played guitar for
Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, the New York band led by Jimi
Hendrix­Hendrix dubbed him Randy California to avoid confusing him
with another band member. The young guitarist turned down an offer by
the future rock superstar to move to London when Hendrix headed
overseas to start the Experience.

Instead, he returned to his native L.A. At first, his genre-leaping,
multi-generational band (ages 16-44) was named Spirits Rebellious,
after the mystical writer Kahlil Gibran's poem.

Spirit released its self-titled debut in 1968.
On its first tour of the United States, Led Zeppelin opened several
shows for Spirit. Jimmy Page later pilfered the descending chord
progression and main guitar riff from the Spirit tune "Taurus" for
the signature Zep song "Stairway to Heaven."

Page never admitted the plunder, but Randy California did live to see
others embrace his musical vision. In 1997, he drowned while saving
his 12-year-old surfer son from a riptide near a friend's home in
Molokai, Hawaii.

His body was never recovered.

.