Spirit – I Got A Line On You (1984)

Written By A 17-Year-Old Who Once Played Guitar For Jimi Hendrix

Spirit released “I Got a Line on You” in October 1968 as the lead single from their second album The Family That Plays Together. The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on January 18, 1969, and took nearly six months to reach its peak of number 25 on March 15, 1969, where it spent 12 weeks on the chart. In Canada, it climbed to number 28. This was Spirit’s highest-charting single and their only top 40 hit—a song so infectious that college radio stations picked it up in late November 1968 and never let go. What nobody expected was that it had been written by a teenager who’d spent the previous year playing Greenwich Village clubs with Jimi Hendrix.

The single marked Spirit’s commercial breakthrough after a year of building underground credibility. The Family That Plays Together peaked at number 22 on the Billboard 200 when it was released in December 1968, making it the band’s most successful album to date. Billboard called “I Got a Line on You” “the near definitive rock single,” while Cash Box praised its “exceptional instrumental work and teen power beat.” The album showcased the band’s evolution from psychedelic folk-rock toward a harder, more progressive sound—one that blended jazz influence with driving guitar riffs and sophisticated vocal harmonies that pointed toward what progressive rock would become.

Producer Lou Adler had told the band they needed a hit single. Randy California—born Randy Craig Wolfe—sat down and cranked it out. He was 17 years old. The song’s iconic guitar riff was deceptively simple, played against John Locke’s firmly stated piano chords and Mark Andes’ rolling bassline. What made it work was California’s confident vocal delivery and the band’s increasingly impressive harmonies. The lyrics were straightforward—almost too straightforward for a band known for experimental tendencies—but that accessibility became the song’s greatest strength. Before forming Spirit, California had played with Hendrix in Jimmy James and the Blue Flames in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1966. Hendrix gave him the nickname “Randy California” to distinguish him from another guitarist named Randy Palmer, whom Hendrix called “Randy Texas.”

The album was recorded between March 11 and September 18, 1968, and produced by Lou Adler, with engineering by Eric Wienbang and Armin Steiner. The sessions took place at various Los Angeles studios, with string and horn arrangements by West Coast jazz legend Marty Paich. Spirit’s lineup featured California on guitar and vocals, his stepfather Ed Cassidy on drums—instantly recognizable by his shaved head and fondness for wearing all black—Jay Ferguson on vocals and percussion, Andes on bass, and Locke on keyboards. The 20-year age gap between Cassidy and the rest of the band gave Spirit a unique dynamic. Cassidy had already played with Cannonball Adderley, Gerry Mulligan, and Thelonious Monk before joining his stepson’s psychedelic rock band.

The Family That Plays Together showcased Spirit’s range across 11 tracks, from the hard-driving opener “I Got a Line on You” to the bossa nova-tinged “It Shall Be” and the gorgeous midtempo ballad “Darlin’ If.” The album title referenced the popular 1940s slogan “The family that prays together stays together,” but also nodded to the California-Cassidy stepson-stepfather relationship. The band lived together in a house in Topanga Canyon during this period, fully embracing the communal lifestyle of late-1960s Los Angeles. The album cover was photographed at the Sunset Highland Motel on Sunset Boulevard, directly across from Hollywood High School.

The song has been covered by numerous artists over the decades. Most notably, Alice Cooper’s supergroup Hollywood Vampires—featuring Johnny Depp, Joe Perry, and Tommy Henriksen—recorded a version that appeared on their 2015 self-titled debut album and was performed in front of over 100,000 fans at their legendary Rock in Rio concert. Their 2023 live album Live in Rio prominently featured the Spirit classic. Cooper later said Randy California “passed away saving his son from drowning,” adding emotional weight to their tribute. Other covers have come from various rock and alternative acts seeking to capture the song’s raw, driving energy.

On January 2, 1997, Randy California drowned off the coast of Hawaii at age 45. He had been surfing with his 12-year-old son Quinn when the boy got caught in a riptide. California managed to push Quinn to safety but lost his own life in the process. Quinn survived. Ed Cassidy continued performing as “Spirit Revisited” for a time before passing away in 2012 at age 89. The song California wrote at 17 has outlasted him by decades, still appearing on classic rock radio and streaming playlists. For a band that never achieved the commercial success of The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, or Cream, Spirit left an indelible mark. As one musician put it: it remains a mystery why Spirit didn’t achieve greater popularity—maybe because they followed their own muse rather than chasing trends. That integrity is exactly what makes “I Got a Line on You” endure.