Clear
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Album Summary
Clear was the third studio album from the Los Angeles rock collective Spirit, dropped in 1969 on Ode Records — that same fertile label that was nurturing some of the most adventurous sounds coming out of the West Coast at the time. Lou Adler sat in the producer's chair, and brother, he had a feel for what Spirit was trying to say. Recorded during a period when this band was pushing hard against the boundaries of what rock music could be, Clear found Spirit stretching out into deeper psychedelic and experimental territory, building on the momentum of their earlier work and cementing their reputation as one of the most musically sophisticated outfits the late sixties had to offer.
Reception
- Clear made its presence known on the Billboard 200, giving Spirit a measure of commercial recognition that confirmed the band was reaching ears well beyond the Los Angeles underground.
- Rock critics of the era responded warmly to the album's ambitious arrangements and the tight, instinctive musicianship that Spirit brought to every track, though some felt the debut still cast a long shadow over the band's newer work.
Significance
- Clear stands as a genuine artifact of the psychedelic hard rock fusion that was bubbling up out of Los Angeles in 1969, weaving blues-rock muscle together with experimental studio imagination in a way that felt wholly original.
- The album gave full voice to the remarkable range Spirit possessed as a unit — Jay Ferguson's soulful vocals, Randy California's distinctive and visionary guitar work, and the collective interplay of a band that truly listened to one another.
- With tracks spanning raw blues grit to spacious, atmospheric territory across its twelve songs, Clear helped establish Spirit as pioneers of what would eventually grow into progressive rock, pointing the way forward for artists who believed rock music deserved to be taken seriously as a compositional art form.
Tracklist
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A1 Dark Eyed Woman 124
3:06
-
A2 Apple Orchard 163
4:05
-
A3 So Little Time To Fly 114
2:45
-
A4 Ground Hog 73
3:01
-
A5 Cold Wind 129
3:20
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A6 Policeman's Ball 111
2:18
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B1 Ice 145
5:53
-
B2 Give A Life, Take A Life 125
3:25
-
B3 I'm Truckin' 86
2:24
-
B4 Clear —
4:08
-
B5 Caught 91
3:10
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B6 New Dope In Town 93
4:24
Artist Details
Spirit was a brilliant and beautifully strange band that came together in Los Angeles back in 1967, blending rock, jazz, blues, and psychedelia into something that didn't quite sound like anything else on the radio — their self-titled debut and the classic *Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus* from 1970 showed a band operating on a whole other cosmic level, led by the gifted Randy California on guitar alongside his stepfather, jazz drummer Ed Cassidy. They never got the massive mainstream recognition they deserved, but serious music lovers knew the truth — Spirit was one of the most adventurous and soulful acts to come out of the California rock scene, and their influence quietly ran deep through the roots of progressive and psychedelic rock for years to come.
