THE FAMILY THAT PLAYS TOGETHER
The Family That Plays Together, the second of four albums released by the original Spirit lineup, was marketed by Ode Records in December 1968. Tracks such as “It Shall Be” and “Silky Sam” demonstrate the ease with which the ensemble can incorporate jazz into their idiosyncratic form of rock, while “Jewish” and “Aren’t You Glad” show the band’s competence in exploiting both world music and jam rock. “Poor Richard”, “Jewish”, and “All the Same” feature double track lead breaks by guitarist Randy California. (More from Wikipedia)
Spirit’s biggest hit song was a rousing rocker called “I Got a Line on You”, which was released in November 1968. The accompanying album, The Family that Plays Together is one of my favorite American albums of the 1960’s.
The album includes an unusual track called “Jewish” that is sung in Hebrew. Like “Taurus”, “Jewish” was written by Randy California; he had been raised in a Jewish home. According to a post by Jewish Business News, the lyrics are taken from a traditional song called “Henei Ma Tov” (or “Hine Ma Tov”) that is based on Psalm 133 (one of the Psalms of David).
(November 2014)
