3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An Interesting Rareities Album, September 17, 2010
Spirit - "Chronicles 1967-1992" - 1991 Line Music (Germany) CD
Some early Spirit from before their first LP mainly. It consists of outtakes, alternate takes, re-recordings, and later projects from after their early material. Some of the material on this CD is quite good, others tunes are just of historical interest. This is not a best of or greatest hits collection. For reference I would rate their first four albums in the 4 to 4.5 star range. This is not the place to start a Spirit collection. Buy the albums with the original line-up of the band first, "Spirit," "Clear Spirit," "The Family That Plays Together," and "The Twelve Dreams of..." first. Then you may want to investigate some of their later albums. Then people drifted in and out of the band thru the mid-seventies, followed by a few re-union attempts. The title seems to be a misprint. It should have been "Chronicles 1967-1991". It is mainly for dedicated fans.
Some background on the band. Spirit is a unique mix of rock, pop, and jazz. The band's guitarist, Randy California (Randy Wolfe) comes from a really interesting family. His uncle Edwin Pearl owned the Ash Grove Folk and Blues Club in Los Angeles. Ed Pearl once ran for President for the Peace and Freedom Party. Another uncle, Bernie Pearl is a personal friend and is a blues guitarist. The Pearls are a pretty amusing clan. Bernie and Ed have a couple other brothers not in the music business. Their older sister Bernice was the mother of Spirit guitarist Randy California and was briefly married to Spirit's bald drummer Ed Cassidy. So Ed Cassidy was Randy's step-father and band mate. Spirit was essentially a Los Angeles based band. For a short time before Spirit Randy California was in a band with Jimi Hendrix playing around New York City. When Jimi went to England he wanted to take Randy along, but Bernice and Ed said no as Randy was still a minor teen. To think, the Experience might have been a quartet. Jimi gave Randy the stage name California to differentiate him from another Randy in the band. Randy drowned some years ago while saving his own son at a dangerous swimming spot in Hawaii. What of the other original members of Spirit? Ed Cassidy originally was a jazz drummer and today is very old. He was much older than the other members of Spirit and so semi-retired many years ago. Jay Ferguson (guitar, vocals, percussion) then formed the band Jo Jo Gunne with Mark and Matt Andes, and today composes music for TV and Film. Mark Andes (bass) also formed Jo Jo Gunne, and later joined Heart. John Locke (keyboards) has been involved with many musical projects and toured with other artists. One might think that Jimmy Page was familiar with the Spirit piece "Taurus" from the album "Spirit," a mood piece with orchestra and finger picked guitar, when he wrote the intro part of "Stairway to Heaven". Hmmm. From the liner notes in their reissued CD, Randy states that they toured with Led Zeppelin and LZ would play a cover of the Spirit song "Fresh Garbage". So there is a link between the bands.
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