A reviewer for Rolling Stone magazine called Spirit’s “I Got a Line On You” “the near definitive rock single.” I can’t argue with that. Released in October of 1968, today’s hard-rockin’ classic song of the day took almost six months to reach its peak of #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March of 1969.
“I Got a Line On You” was written by Spirit’s Randy California, who was just 17 years old at the time. It was produced by industry legend Lou Adler and released on Ode Records here in the States, and either CBS Records or Columbia Records in other countries.
Randy California (guitar and vocals), Jay Ferguson (vocals), John Locke (keyboards), Mark Andes (bass), and California’s stepfather Ed Cassidy (drums) formed the group Spirit in 1967. They released their self-titled debut album early in 1968, and their second album, The Family That Plays Together later that same year. (“I Got a Line On You” was a track on that second album.) They released a third album, Clear, in 1969, then came out with the groundbreaking Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus in 1970. Dr. Sardonicus was one of my favorite albums when I was in junior high and high school, and still ranks in my personal top ten best. That one featured the hits “Mr. Skin” and “Nature’s Way” and is a marvel of psychedelic rock and adventurously trippy stereo recording.
Spirit hung together, in one form or another, through 1979, even after the departures of Randy California and Jay Ferguson. (Ferguson had a solo hit with “Thunder Island” in 1978.) Various factions of the group formed and reformed several times throughout the 1980s and 1990s, until Randy California’s death in 1998, at the young age of 45. John Locke passed away in 2006, age 62, and drummer Ed Cassidy, by far the oldest member of the group, died in 2012 at age 89.
And here’s your joyfully trippy daily bonus video of the day, Spirit’s semi-homemade music video for “I Got a Line On You Babe.” You get a very grainy sense of what the band was like live back in those early days. Groovy, baby!
