The Red Roosters was a fledgling Los Angeles band in the mid-60’s. Teenager Randy Wolfe on vocals and guitar, Jay Ferguson on vocals and percussion, Mark Andes on bass, and Ed Cassidy on drums. Ed was Randy’s stepfather, having married Randy’s mother Beatrice Pearl, sister of Randy’s uncle Ed Pearl who owned the legendary folk music club The Ash Grove. Ed was nearly twenty years older than the rest of the band and had primarily been a jazz musician. He’d gigged with Thelonius Monk, Gerry Mulligan and Cannonball Adderly to name a few. He had also been the drummer for The Rising Sons, featuring Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal. Anyway, with the addition of keyboard player John Locke to The Red Roosters, the group was renamed Spirits Rebellious, soon shortened to Spirit. About 1966, Ed had jazz gigs lined up for himself in New York which prompted Ed, Beatrice and Randy to relocate to the East Coast.

While in New York, Randy visited the legendary music store Manny’s Music on West 48th Street, and met a guitarist named Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix brought Randy in to his band Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. There was already a Randy in the band, Randy Palmer who was from Texas. Hendrix renamed him Randy Texas. Randy Wolfe was renamed Randy California, who was born 73 years ago today in Los Angeles.

Randy California isn’t mentioned much these days, despite having carved out a 30+ year career in music. The family moved back to the West Coast in 1967. Hendrix had wanted to take California with him to London when Chas Chandler from The Animals brought him over, but Randy’s family wasn’t having it. Another story was Chandler didn’t want a second guitarist involved, he wanted the focus on Hendrix. Back in Los Angeles, Spirit was resurrected, with early demos recorded with producer Barry Hansen who would go on to radio fame as Dr. Demento. Lou Adler eventually signed Spirit to his label Ode Records and became their manager in the process. Their self-titled debut album hit the Top 40. Their 2nd album The Family That Plays Together was a bigger hit, hitting the Top 30 on the strength of the group’s biggest single, written by Randy, 1968’s “I Got a Line on You.”

Their 3rd album Clear was less of a success, peaking at #55. Spirit was invited to open for Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, which may have paid huge dividends. Lou Adler declined the invitation, citing the band’s busy schedule promoting Clear. There’s a manager for you. Their fourth album, 1970’s Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus would be a similar hit, peaking at #63 and going Gold. The first single peaked at #111, Randy’s fantastic “Nature’s Way.” He’d written the song in one afternoon during a soundcheck at the Fillmore West. “Nature’s Way” was way ahead of it’s time, written in honor of being guided by nature, warning that Earth was already telling us that ecologically “something’s wrong.” The album would gain a larger following over the years, eventually selling 1,000,000 copies and enabling various line-up’s of Spirit to last into the late 90’s as a trio with California, Cassidy and bassist Mike Nile.

Randy would release several solo albums throughout the 70’s and 80’s while also keeping Spirit afloat, the best known of which was Kapt. Kopter and the (Fabulous) Twerly Birds. Randy California died a hero in 1997, saving his young son Quinn from a riptide in Hawaii, only to be pulled out himself, and drowning. The Randy Craig Wolfe Trust was established after his death, using royalties from California’s recording contracts to financially support the Randy California Project, an after-school music education program for underprivileged elementary school children in Ventura County, California.

He’s little mentioned these days, though his name was heavily in the press a few years back when his estate sued Jimmy Page and Robert Plant for stealing the intro and chords for “Stairway to Heaven” from Spirit’s instrumental “Taurus.” The estate wanted Randy to win a co-writing credit on “Stairway.” Randy himself addressed the similarity in his liner notes to Spirit’s debut album reissue in the mid-90’s: “People always ask me why ‘Stairway to Heaven’ sounds exactly like ‘Taurus,’ which was released two years earlier. I know Led Zeppelin also played ‘Fresh Garbage’ in their live set. They opened up for us on their first American tour.” “Fresh Garbage” and “Taurus” come from the same album, implying that Page and Plant had to have known the song. California never brought legal proceedings on his own. It is true that Zeppelin included “Fresh Garbage” within the jam section of “Whole Lotta Love.” In the first trial, Page and Plant were found to not have copied the song. The main issue, which lead to the initial finding to be overturned, was that the recorded similarity between the two songs was not found to be the same in the printed sheet music. A 2nd trial overturned the 2nd decision, and the case was put to rest. You can hear what brought about the case about :45 in:

In honor of Randy California and “Nature’s Way,” Today’s Playlist is a SomethingIsHappening compendium of nature songs…

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