RANDY CALIFORNIA & SPIRIT

The Euro-American Years

Fascinating dip into an overlooked period of the Spirit guitarist’s career.

The late Randy California’s impact on American music, both as a solo performer and also with Spirit, was enormous. This six-CD box set concentrates on the years between 1979 and 1983, a period that languishes in the critical shadow of California’s earlier work.

Four of the six discs were originally issued in 2006, also under the title The Euro-American Years. Now remastered, these feature not only California’s impressive 1982 second solo album, Euro-American, but also demos he recorded around that time. That album deserves way more credit than it gets for the way it brilliantly mixes American blues – always the heartland for California’s guitar style – with European hard rock and a clever pop touch.

Also carried over from the original package are powerful live performances by Spirit from 1980 and ’81, as well as the Randy California Band onstage in Scotland during October 1979. The Spirit gigs find the group in the sort of swirling psychedelic mode you’d expect from them, while the California solo recording shows how he was striking out on a more flamboyant hard rock-oriented solo path.

What’s been added are two extra CDs, with live shows from Spirit and California’s solo band. The former are captured in a performance from South Carolina in ’81, and prove their complex psychedelia was still enticing. But it’s the Randy California Band who really shine, with their set from Reading Festival in 1982. Anyone who saw them on that weekend will recall the band were among the big successes. They were at the top of their game, offering an intelligent slant on early 80s hard rock.

Additionally, five tracks from California’s performance the same year at Glastonbury Festival are included. The band’s show that day was hampered by the power generator failing, with drummer Preston Heyman doing a 20-minute solo to fill in time, which is, thankfully, not included here. The Euro-American Years is a collection that will greatly appeal to California and Spirit aficionados.