Spirit - Spirit Of '76 - Brilliant Comeback Album From 1976 2

Spirit - Spirit Of '76 - Brilliant Comeback Album From 1976 2CDs + HR art EAC FLAC This marked the return of Randy California to Spirit. Track List: Disc 1 01. America The Beautiful / The Times They Are A Changing 02. Victim Of Society 03. Lady Of The Lakes 04. Tampa Jam (Pt. 1) 05. Maunaloa 06. What Do I Have 07. Sunrise 08. Walking The Dog 09. Tampa Jam (Pt. 2) 10. Joker On The Run 11. When? 12. Like A Rolling Stone Disc 2 01. Once Again 02. Feeling In Time 03. Happy 04. Jack Bond 05. My Road 06. Tampa Jam (Pt. 3) 07. Thank You Lord 08. Urantia 09. Guide Me 10. Veruska 11. Hey Joe 12. Jack Bond (Pt. 2) 13. The Star Spangled Banner From the liner notes: Whenever the Rock scene of the mid-70s is up for consideration, it’s almost always in a negative light. It’s true that much of mainstream Rock was a fairly turgid affair; over-produced, corporate, formulaic, and very far removed from the audience it was supposed to be addressing. However, the capacity for Rock to throw up a surprise or two, even in the dullest of times, should never be underestimated. With the release of ‘Spirit Of ‘76’, legendary psychedelic combo Spirit, under the leadership of founder Randy California, unleashed a double album that beguiled, entertained and enthralled in equal measure. By the time of its recording, Spirit were a very different combo from that which cut four albums for the Epic Records label between 1968 and 1970. Only drummer Ed Cassidy survived from the original line-up. Indeed, Randy California had only recently joined the band, having quit to pursue a short-lived solo career, the only release to come forth from this period being the savage, stark ‘Kaptain Kopter & The (Fabulous) Twirly Birds’ album, released in 1972. The solo venture failed to ignite, and in 1973, California seemed to undergo something of a breakdown. Moving to Molokai, Hawaii, California was destitute, living on the beach. Whilst there, he was taken in by a Christian family, employing him as their gardener. Having found a level of moderate stability, he acquired a guitar, and started writing the songs that would form the basis for both ’Spirit O ‘76’, and its follow-up, ‘Son Of Spirit’. Having recovered from his breakdown, California relocated to the US mainland, and contacted stepfather Ed Cassidy about reconvening the band. Of immediate concern, however, was the use of the bands name. When California and Jay Ferguson split (the latter to form Jo Jo Gunne with bassist Mark Andes), their places in the band were taken by Texan brothers John and Jim Staehely. This line-up of the band recorded the disappointing ‘Feedback’ album in 1972 (all twenty two minutes of it), but did tour to support it, alongside bassist John Locke and stalwart Ed Cassidy on drums (interesting enough, live tapes from this era display a pretty effective combo, even if, to most fans, any line-up without Randy California is not Spirit). Some time in 1974, California came to a settlement with the Staehely brothers over the use of the bands name, and they toured the USA extensively as a trio with original bass player Mark Andes, from October 1974 through to January of 1975, occasionally joined by keyboard player John Locke. Much of the material performed on that tour would form the content of ‘Spirit Of ‘76’. Whilst all this was happening California seems to have immersed himself in the teachings of the Urantia Foundation, a religious organization based on the ‘Urantia Book’, a tome published in the 1950s, and, according to the organization’s website, was ‘authored by Celestial Beings’. Its teachings propound the notion that there is but one God. His immersion in the Urantia teachings informs much of the ‘Spirit Of ‘76’ album, which has a deeply spiritual aspect (no pun intended here) marbled through it. As you can see, we’re gradually edging closer to the actual album itself, but I have a couple of other points of information that are worth noting, as they do have a bearing on how the album came to be. On the ‘Spirit Of ‘76’ cover is a sentence that reads “Thanks to Alvin Lee for canceling”. The explanation is that Alvin Lee, then ex-of Ten Years After, was scheduled to play the Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa, Florida on March 2nd 1975, but had to cancel the gig. California asked the promoter of the show if they could take over the booking themselves. The show was advertised on local radio, and, charging the princely sum of $3 a ticket, went on to pull in over 6,000 punters. The money accrued was put towards the financing of the ‘Spirit Of ‘76’ recording sessions at Tampa’s Studio 70. Apparently some of the master tapes went missing when California got into an issue with the landlord over damage to the place he was renting. The landlord held the master tapes in lieu of settlement, which were never returned, and remain lost to this day. Spirit signed to Mercury in the summer of 1975, and bass player / engineer Barry Keane was enlisted in place of Mark Andes (although on the album, much of the bass playing was done by California himself). Andes cannot recall how he came to leave the band; he would turn up in the line-up of the band Firefall. Keane stayed with the band until January 1976, whereupon his place was taken by John Terlep. Onto the album itself. ‘Spirit Of ‘76’ was the first band release to feature Randy California in complete creative control of the band’s sound. Gone was the jazzy chording and tricky time signatures of the early Spirit albums, replaced by layers of phased and distorted guitar, a dreamy, stoned/immaculate sound that was the closest that any Rock musician had got to picking up the gauntlet thrown down by the untimely death of Jimi Hendrix in 1970. It’s a well-known part of the Spirit story that California met Hendrix back in the mid 60’s when the ‘Wild Man Of Pop’ was living in New York. Indeed, it was Hendrix who gifted the youthful Randy Wolfe his ‘California’ sobriquet. ‘Spirit Of ‘76’ is not the last knockings of the Hippie Dream, however; it addressed social concerns, and even examining America’s role in the world as the nation’s Bicentennial celebrations loomed large. Hendrix’s influential ghost walks throughout the album, but it’s California’s vision that ultimately wins through. It also contains many entertaining diversions and meanderings, and like most double albums, is occasionally self-indulgent, but it is overall a thoughtful and uplifting work of tangible wonder. At times it reaches points of an almost glacial beauty, other times spacey and spookily transcendent. It was one of the few truly brilliant albums of 1975, and remains the finest album of Spirit’s post 1970 career. ‘Spirit Of ‘76’ was not a great sales success, despite its frequent brilliance. However, it did garner some of the bands’ finest reviews of their career, most notably by Max Bell in the New Musical Express. It Has the timeless qualities of all truly Classic Rock albums, stylistically diverse but informed by a vision very particular to the artist, great songs, incisive playing, and beautifully sung. Randy California would make many other fine recordings between this album and his untimely death in1997, most flickering with the brilliance that came into sharp focus on ‘Spirit Of ‘76’. Here, in it’s original album release configuration, is Randy California’s masterpiece. Truly, a thing of beauty is a joy forever. Alan Robinson, September 2003

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ironsun (2009-07-29)

Seed please ! Been waiting what seems an age to get this top album. Thanx in advance.