I have a placard on my bedroom wall.. As a 53 yr.old geezer it means a lot to me... I quote: "You're NEVER TOO OLD to have a happy childhood.." I saw Spirit twice in St. Louis, where they should've opened a CHURCH, and as everybody else was wowed by their "Spirited" performances... Randy was always exceptional on guitar, and who could forget the bald-headed drummer with the 'wraparound' shades pounding the skins??.. Now this compilation of tunes sometimes not heard in decades back-to-back on radio comes to the front row... RandY California and his innovative, ground-breaking band live again in this excellent anthology and tour of the 'Spirit' world.. I'm in 7th heaven reliving these ultimate classics, which display something most unusual in a lot of 'sixties' bands; a remarkable tightness & chemistry which always transformed itself effortlessly from studio to stage as this seminal band moved through its evolutions... The cuts on this album can be appreciated whole-heartedly even by the strum-addicted power-chord rasp-voiced maniacs (sorry, Nirvana) of today's genre... I'm sure the most 'musical' & prescient of even THAT set would agree upon the sheer universality and good-time nature of this music, as well as its cutting edge creativity... This album gives ME goose bumps... I can't praise it enough... Sometimes OLD air is FRESH AIR!!!.

If I were alone on a desert island with only one Spirit disc,this would have to be it.This disc contains 16 tracks from the 1st four albums with the original band line-up.Although Spirit went on to record for 29 years,[67-96]it is this first band`s effort`s that the `60`s generation,now in their 50`s;will remember.There has never been a more creative period musically than the mid 60`s to the mid 70`s.Spirits music from this early period is a living testimony of how explosive these 5 talented musicians truly were on stage or in the studio.This would be a great place to start as a musical ice-breaker to bridge that proverbial generation gap.Imagine a 50plus hippiefied 60`s freak who doesn`t know that Spirit was still around in 96,receiving a copy of an album they haven`t seen for 30plus years.Or better yet,that 50plus hippy telling their son or daughter about R.C. and Spirit while they`ve been listening to Floyd,Zappa J.Tull,Phish and other great bands.I wholly support Mick Skidmore[Executive Producer-posthumous releases from R.C. Estate] and Bernice Pearl[Randy`s Mom] for their efforts in keeping the music of Randy Spirit alive.This band should be placed in the Rock`N Roll Hall Of Fame. Any Ideas?

For those of us who grew up in the '60's Spirit was one of the bands that were frequently played on the mysterious FM band. The Best of Spirit has all of the best hits and the audio quality is really good. So dust off your Nehru jacket, fire up your Lava Lamp and give The Best of Spirit a huge spin on your CD player. Its Nature Way of Telling You, you survived! Mike