Story here.
I searched for a thread but I couldn’t find one. I know there are more than a few fans of Spirit on this board.
He was the “Mr. Skin” of the great song on “The Twelve Dreams of Doctor Sardonicus.” Link here.
I was fortunate enough to see Spirit live twice, once in 1969 and again in 1970.
Great drummer - great showman - great band.
Thanks, Ed for, the music.
Cassidy was already in his forties when he formed first the Rising Sons and then Spirit, making him probably two decades older than almost literally everybody else in L. A. rock at the time, so I’m kind of surprised he made it this far. And according to Wikipedia he was Spirit’s singer/guitarist Randy California’s stepdad!? That must’ve been weird.
This is sad news. R.I.P. Mr. Skin. I was just thinking about Ed a few weeks ago and checked his wiki page to confirm that he was still alive.
When I was in high school in the 80s, my best friend and I were 60s music nerds who only listened to stuff the other kids’ parents couldn’t even remember. Spirit was one of my favorite bands and I was lucky enough to meet Ed and Randy on a couple of occasions.
One afternoon in 1986 my best friend and I went to the Uptown Theater in Kansas City to buy tickets for a Spirit show that night. While walking back to the car we saw Randy pulling two guitar cases out of a limo alongside the building and heading for the backstage entrance. When we asked if he needed help, he handed each of us a guitar and deputized us as roadies for the evening. The tickets we purchased went unused – we spent that afternoon and the rest of the evening hanging out with the band (and Iron Butterfly, led by Mike Pinera, as the opening act) backstage and watching the show from the wings. It was the most memorable concert experience of my life.
After the show we helped the band with their teardown and my friend assisted Ed with packing the drums. As my friend struggled to get one of the large cymbals centered over the spindle in its case, I heard Ed tell him, “Son, if you have that much trouble finding a hole at your age, you have a lot of living to do.”
I have some memories about Randy from that night too, but I guess I’m too late for his memorial thread.
Good guys, both of them. They’ll be missed.
I’ll always remember Ed from the back of Spirit’s second album.
Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus was one of the albums that got me through the 1970s. I’ve no idea how many times I’ve listened to it, but it was at least once a month for a long, long time.
Thank you, Ed and Randy, for the beautiful music.
Aw, man - I was a big fan of Spirit. I find a surprising amount of their early stuff holds up reasonably well considering the self-indulgences of the period. 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus is really a pretty consistently strong album throughout and you can’t ( or I can’t ) say that about all that many albums from the 1960’s.
Why do you think their second album was called “The Family that Plays Together”?
I was saddened to hear this. Cassidy was the face of Spirit, not just because of his age, but because he had a shaved head at a time when no one – especially rock musicians – did. He was evidently a big part of their stage show: Lillian Roxon wrote on how he made amazing facial contortions as he played.
Spirit itself is one of the best and certainly most underrated groups of the era. “Twelve Dreams” is one of the best rock album of the time, and the other three prior to the first breakup all are filled with excellent music.
BTW, Randy California died about ten years ago, saving his son from a rip current that was pulling him out to sea. Not the strangest of rock deaths, but certainly the most heroic.
It’s actually been almost 16 years since he died. Not a nitpick, just pointing that out because it does seem hard to believe it was that long ago. I remember being stunned at the news and hoping it was just an internet hoax.
Very niceobituary in the NY Times.
Didn’t mean to “bump” an obituary thread but I just recently learned of Ed Cassidy’s passing.
Labdad said there are more than a few SDMB Spirit fans and here’s another one.
Spirit had more than its share of bad luck. Their song “1984” was originally believed to achieve huge hit status. However, they released this at the time Nixon and Agnew were extremely critical of the press and the media, rendering this song unplayable for a lot of radio stations.
They could have appeared at Woodstock but instead were encouraged to promote their album “Clear”.
Anyway I’ll leave a link to their 1969 video for the infamous “1984” which prominently features Ed Cassidy and Randy California playing a lucite Dan Armstrong guitar.
and Rest In Peace Ed Cassidy
