Family’s Got the Spirit to Keep Group in Groove

At night, he plays music and signs autographs as Randy California. In the day, he takes care of business and signs contracts using his real name, Randy Wolfe.

The 39-year-old singer-guitarist of Spirit, you see, is also the band’s manager, and he’s been essentially tooting his own horn for more than a decade.

“I suppose if somebody would walk up to me and give me some intelligent alternative, I’d say, ‘Hey, let’s give it a try,’ ” said California, who is bringing the latest incarnation of the seminal Los Angeles rock band to town this week for a two-night stand--Friday and Saturday--at Winston’s Beach Club in Ocean Beach.

“But until that happens,” he said, “I’m going to keep on doing it myself, with my family.”

The family includes Spirit drummer Ed Cassidy, who is California’s stepfather, and two sisters, who help out in the office. They’ve kept the band together since the late 1970s, when the music industry decided Spirit was no longer a viable commercial entity.

Between 1968 and its 1971 breakup, the original Spirit produced four critically acclaimed albums of hard rock fused with blues, country, folk and jazz. The group scored a Top 40 hit in 1969 with “I Got a Line on You.”

In 1974, California and Cassidy reformed Spirit and promptly got signed by Mercury Records. Three years, and three albums, later, however, Spirit was dropped by Mercury, and the group--now a trio, with Mike Nile on bass--has been on its own ever since.

The group has been pressing and distributing its own records, coordinating concert tours, and trying to interest investors in forming a production company.

A reunion album, featuring all but one of the original members, came out last year on the IRS Records label, but California was politely told it was a one-shot deal.

“I was talking with Miles Copeland, the head of IRS, and he told me it was going to be real difficult marketing Spirit,” California said. “He told me, ‘If you guys were a totally unknown band, it would be a lot easier.’

“I think it has to do with America’s throwaway society. The feeling (in the music industry) is that we were a hit 20 years ago, and our style couldn’t possibly be a hit today.

“But I think they’re wrong. Real musicians playing real music are someday going to come back around, replacing this manufactured dance crap we get today.”

Three benefit concerts will be held in San Diego this month.

The first is the “1990 Census Celebration Concert” on Sunday afternoon at the recently opened San Diego Convention Center’s bayfront amphitheater.

The show will start at 4 p.m. and feature four Latino pop acts--Tijuana native Antonio, Jose Javier Solis, Jose Tamayo, and Los Chicanos. The concert is intended to heighten awareness of the 1990 Census among San Diego’s Latino community.

U.S. Census Bureau representatives will pass out census forms and the box-office take will be donated to local Latino charities. The concert is sponsored by the Convention Center, Spanish-language television station XEWT (Channel 12), Cox Cable, ABC Schools and RJR/Nabisco.

On April 12, Stevie B, M.C. Hammer, and seven other teeny-bop idols will be at San Diego State University’s Open Air Theater for “Q Jam II,” the second benefit bash produced by Top 40 radio combo KKLQ-AM/FM (600/106.5, Q106). Also on the bill will be Expose, Calloway, Michel’le, Tommy Page, Linear, Jaya and U-Krew.

Last fall’s five-act “Q Jam ‘89,” also at the Open Air Theater, was a quick sellout and raised thousands of dollars for various San Diego charities. All proceeds from “Q Jam II,” which begins at 6 p.m., will go to local environmental groups and causes.

And on April 28, the Del Mar Shores Auditorium will host the third annual benefit concert for San Diego Folk Heritage, a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization that’s been producing local concerts by touring folk acts from all over the world, since January, 1988.

Among the performers, all of whom are Folk Heritage board members and volunteers: vocal duo Jo Ann and Larry Sinclair, singing traditional and contemporary topical folk tunes; hammer dulcimer players Ronnie Russell and Jim Hayes; and an old-time banjo, fiddle, and guitar combo consisting of Dave Allen, Christopher Cunningham and Bruce and Barbara Reid.

LINER NOTES: This year’s ninth annual Concerts by the Bay series at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island won’t get under way until sometime in June, a month later than usual. The Half Moon Inn, of which Humphrey’s is a part, is being remodeled, and the series can’t start until the project is finished. . . .

Seven years ago this week, expatriate San Diego singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop’s last hit, “It Might Be You”--the theme from the movie “Tootsie”--made its debut on the national Top 40 charts. . . .

Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. for Allanah Myles’ May 2 concert at the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa. . . .

Best concert bets for the coming week: Dave Edmunds’ Rock ‘n’ Roll Revue, co-starring Dion, Graham Parker, Kim Wilson (of the Fabulous Thunderbirds), and the Memphis Horns, tonight at the California Theater downtown; John Anderson, tonight at the Circle D Corral in El Cajon; Rush with Mr. Big, Thursday at the San Diego Sports Arena; B.B. King, Thursday at the Bacchanal; Jack Mack and the Heart Attack with the Harpoons, Thursday at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach; the Weirdos with the Dum Dum Boys, Friday at the Casbah in Middletown; the Front with Black List and Fire House, Friday at the Bacchanal; the Bonedaddys, Friday at the Belly Up Tavern; Spirit, Friday and Saturday at Winston’s Beach Club; actor-cum-singer Harry Dean Stanton with Billy Swan and Jerry McCann, Sunday at the Belly Up Tavern.