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Spirit Of 76 [CD]

Spirit | Format: Audio CD
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
Price: £11.22 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Frequently Bought Together

Spirit Of 76 + Future Games / Spirit Of 84 + Potato Land
Price For All Three: £29.31

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Product details

  • Audio CD (26 Sep 2011)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Format: CD
  • Label: BGO Records
  • ASIN: B0000YHJP0
  • Other Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 73,750 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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Disc: 1
1. America The Beautiful/The Times They Are A Changing
2. Victim Of Society
3. Lady Of The Lakes
4. Tampa Jam (Pt. 1)
5. Maunaloa
6. What Do I Have
7. Sunrise
8. Walking The Dog
9. Tampa Jam (Pt. 2)
10. Joker On The Run
See all 12 tracks on this disc
Disc: 2
1. Once Again
2. Feeling In Time
3. Happy
4. Jack Bond
5. My Road
6. Tampa Jam (Pt. 3)
7. Thank You Lord
8. Urantia
9. Guide Me
10. Veruska
See all 13 tracks on this disc

Product Description

Product Description

Originally a double album appearing on Mercury from 1975, now available on CD. 25 tracks packaged with a slipcase.

BBC Review

Spirit are probably best known for 1969's The Twelve Dreams of Doctor Sardonicus, a sort-of-concept album consisting of equal parts psychedelia, West Coast rock and jazz. Having recorded what many still see as their artistic peak, the band fell apart, appeared with an almost entirely new line-up, broke up again and finally resurfaced as a duo of guitarist Randy California (on the mend after a breakdown) and his stepdad, drummer Ed Cassidy. Though Spirit would exist in various forms till California's untimely death in 1997, mid 70s output like Future Games and this album remain probably their most exploratory and underappreciated work.

Spirit of 76 is some kind of vaguely political comment on America's Bicentennial Independence celebrations; we open with "America The Beautiful" which slides into "The Times They Are 'A Changing", while a foggy "Hey Joe" gives way to a surf-pop rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" as the album closes. In between there's a kaleidoscopic mix of sun-kissed pop, jangly acoustics, psychedelic blissouts, Beach Boys harmonies and hazy, fuzzed out jams, all filtered through California's increasingly eccentric yet inspired approach to the studio.

Keen readers may have spotted a Hendrix influence in the choice of material. Randy and Jimi played together in the Blue Flames, and there's some of Hendrix in California's cool, nasal vocal. His (much underrated) guitar playing carries some influence too; not the wild pyrotechnics imitated by thousands, but the lush textural explorations of "All Along the Watchtower" or "1983, A Merman I Should Be". From the yearning, jazzy atmospherics of "When?" to the swooning, cosmic skyscrapings of "Urantia" and "Once Again" to the cavernous, primal heavy metal of "Veruska", California soaks his guitars in swathes of warm tape delay, phasing and various flavours of distortion, threatening to overload the tape with his cosmic musings.

This may have something to do with fact that the music 'comes from another dimension somewhere along the Time Coast'. Throughout proceedings a character called Jack Bond pops up to mutter unintelligibly about this in a slowed down, echo drenched voice, and the album is stuffed full of whispers, false endings, a nice stereo ping pong match, and all sorts of smoker's delights. After 20 or so years of listening to this album, I'm still hearing new things. Or at least I think I am, which is a pretty good trick to pull off when you think about it. Eccentric, inexplicable and utterly beautiful. California dreaming, indeed. --Peter Marsh

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Spaced out hippy music 3 Mar 2004
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
Glissando guitars and spaced out echos re-work lots of early 70's music. 1976 was America's bicentenary and this was Randy California's tribute. It includes electric re-workings of Jimi Hendrix (several tracks) and Bob Dylan - a sad galactic version of "Like A Rolling Stone" and a prophetic "Times They Are A Changing" linked to "America the Beautiful" - something symbolic there...along with trippy electricity of the hippy era. There is an "elctro jam" that runs through the album -we get a minute or so fading in then out between certain tracks. It was originally a double album on vinyl. This is one of the albums I would want on a desert island with me.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Spirit's finest hour 20 Nov 2007
By JamesW
Format:Audio CD
Spirit's hommage to the '76 Bicentennial of the USA. The popular music of the '70s and some from the '60s is adapted, warped and twisted to great new versions. Dylan, Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Santana and even a couple of Hawkwind riffs are thrown into the mix. Plus soul from Tamla, Stax and Atlantic. AND IT WORKS!!
Well worth the money, although I think the vinyl version sounds slighty better.
The Mercury Years has all the tracks but not in sequence.
One of the few albums that must be heard in its entirety, in one session.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Grrat production on decent kit 10 Feb 2013
By David
Format:Audio CD
Love t Rthis double album the cover of Hendrix's hey joe could only have been conceived by Spirit-I havent heard the 4 album set yet but seem to remember hearing dr sardonicus way back and always preferring spirit of 76 sure won't stop me getting the 4 album set though-curse you amazon for this endless irrisistable temptation. David
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