Spirit (Spirit album)
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| Spirit | |||||
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| Studio album by Spirit | |||||
| Released | January 22, 1968 | ||||
| Recorded | November 11-17, 1967 | ||||
| Genre | Rock | ||||
| Label | Epic Records/Legacy Recordings | ||||
| Producer | Lou Adler | ||||
| Professional reviews | |||||
| Spirit chronology | |||||
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Spirit's self-titled debut album is one whose multifarious experimentalism owes in large part to the contemporary successes of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Pink Floyd's The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, earmarked the humble beginnings and grand aspirations of its eponymous authors. While the mindset required to produce Spirit was ubiquitous, however, the endeavour itself was far from clichèd. The eclecticism of Randy California's writing coupled Barrett's psychotropism with Morrison's West Coast bohemianism; and although the result proved somewhat inaccessible to the masses, it made the project ripe for underground FM airtime. The band would later curtail its psychedelia by focusing on a broader array of genres.
This release was published first by Ode records in 1968. It has since been reprinted by Sony–repackaged in compact-disc form and remastered from original analogue tapes.
[edit] Track listing
All songs written by Jay Ferguson except noted.
- "Fresh-Garbage" - 3:11
- "Uncle Jack" - 2:44
- "Mechanical World" (Mark Andes, Jay Ferguson) - 5:15
- "Taurus" (Randy California) - 2:37
- "Girl in Your Eye" - 3:15
- "Straight Arrow" - 2:50
- "Topanga Windows" - 3:36
- "Gramophone Man" (Mark Andes, Randy California, Ed Cassidy, Jay Ferguson, John Locke) - 3:49
- "Water Woman" - 2:11
- "The Great Canyon Fire in General" - 2:46
- "Elijah" (John Locke) - 10:42
- "Veruska" (Randy California) - 2:50*
- "Free Spirit" (John Locke) - 4:27*
- "If I Had a Woman" (Randy California) - 3:11*
- "Elijah (Alternate Take)" (John Locke) - 9:42*
*Tracks specific to the 1996 reissue
[edit] Miscellanea
The song "Fresh-Garbage" has been sampled in the Pink song "Feel Good Time", found on the soundtrack of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. "Fresh Garbage" was also used as the title (and theme music) of a rock music program on BBC Radio London in the early 1970s.
In 1973 Epic released a two-disc LP repackage of Spirit and Clear entitled "Spirit".
The guitar riff that occurs about :43 into "Taurus" is said to have influenced Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page in composing his famous intro to "Stairway to Heaven". Led Zeppelin opened for Spirit on an American tour in 1968.
