Randy California

Randy Craig Wolfe (February 20, 1951 – January 2, 1997), known as Randy California, was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, and one of the original members of the rock group Spirit, formed in 1967.

Life and career

California was born as Randy Craig Wolfe into a musical Jewish[1] family in Los Angeles and spent his early years studying varied styles at the family's Los Angeles folk club, the Ash Grove, which was founded by his uncle, Ed Pearl. He was 15 years old when his mother Bernice Pearl and new stepfather, Ed Cassidy (later to become a founding member of the band Spirit, with Randy), moved to New York City in the summer of 1966 because Cassidy had a number of jazz gigs lined up. It was there, at Manny's Music, that he met Jimi Hendrix.

He played in Hendrix's band Jimmy James and the Blue Flames that summer. California, Cassidy and Pearl lived in an apartment building in Forest Hills, Queens called the Balfour, whose other residents included future Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker, who cited California's blues-based guitar style as an influence on his own playing.

The stage name "Randy California" was given to him by Hendrix to distinguish him from another Randy in the band, Randy Palmer, whom Hendrix dubbed "Randy Texas".[1] When Hendrix and California were invited to come to England by Chas Chandler, former bassist of British Invasion band the Animals—who became Hendrix's manager and producer—Randy's parents refused to allow him to go, insisting the 15-year-old stay and finish high school. By some accounts, Chandler wanted Hendrix as the only guitarist for the band and nixed California's going to England.

Together with Cassidy, songwriter/front-man Jay Ferguson, bassist Mark Andes (with whom California and Cassidy had initially formed a band called the Red Roosters) and keyboardist John Locke, California founded the band Spirit. Their first, self-titled album was released in January 1968, a month before California's 17th birthday.

He then wrote the band's biggest hit, 1968's "I Got a Line on You" for Spirit's second album, The Family That Plays Together. He also wrote the single "1984", inspired by George Orwell's novel of the same name. Released in early 1970, "the song was so pointed against the U.S. government that it was banned from many radio stations, although it was a huge hit in Germany." California also wrote Spirit's other hit, "Nature's Way", for the band's best-selling album, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.

Career
Spirit was invited to open for Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. However, band manager/producer Lou Adler—who had been one of the founders of the rock festival movement two years earlier, as a partner (with Mamas & Papas frontman John Phillips) in the Monterey Pop Festival, where Hendrix premiered in the U.S.—opposed it because the band was busy promoting their latest album, Clear.

When Ferguson and Andes left Spirit to form Jo Jo Gunne due to the slow sales of Sardonicus, and then his dear friend Hendrix died, a depressed California left Spirit. He recorded Kapt. Kopter & The Fabulous Twirly Birds, which included California and Cassidy's version of Paul Simon's "Mother and Child Reunion" plus a slew of Hendrix-inspired tracks (also featuring former Experience bassist Noel Redding, AKA 'Clit McTorius'). In 1972 the album was released at virtually the same moment as Jo Jo Gunne's first, eponymous album that featured "Run, Run Run" and a Spirit album called Feedback that was recorded by Cassidy and Locke (who were Spirit's jazz influences) and guitarist/bassist brother duo Al and John Staehely, who wrote and sang most of the material on the LP.