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On this episode of the podcast, we discuss Spirit and their fourth album Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.

The band Spirit sports an impressive pedigree. Drummer Ed Cassidy (20 years older than the rest of the band) was an established jazz musician, having played drums with many jazz greats throughout the 1940s and 1950s.  His stepson Randy California (né Randy Wolfe) was a young guitar prodigy, who at 15 years old impressed Jimi Hendrix enough to be asked to join his band Jimmy James and the Blue Flames.

Released in 1970, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus, is Spirit's most beloved album, and considered by many to be an all-time great. With one foot firmly planted in the idealism of the 1960s, and the other planted in the experiential and harder-edged music of the 1970's,  it musically straddles both decades, but is unlike almost anything else released at the time.  Combining elements of folk, jazz, progressive rock, psychedelia, and even proto-metal, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus effortlessly slides from folk ballads, to hook-laden rockers, to far out space jams. And while the album, like the band itself, may not be easy to categorize, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus is an immensely compelling  and consistently entertaining listen. 

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