Spirits & Worm

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The only album released by psychedelic quintet Spirits & Worm is the stuff of confused legend. The group conjured the kind of sound heavily associated with the West Coast style of psychedelia, as mastered by San Francisco-based Jefferson Airplane. But Spirits & Worm was based in Long Island, New York, laying down the tracks for this A&M release at Bill Stahl’s Ultrasonic Studios in Hempstead, where Iron Butterfly and Vanilla Fudge cut most of their work. Spirits & Worm featured chief songwriter Carlos Hernandez on fiery lead guitar, Tommy Parris on subdued bass and vocals, Artie Hicks Junior on drums, with Alfred Scotti on rhythm guitar and vocals, and adding to the Jefferson Airplane reference, the emotive tones of Adrianne Maurici. Despite the album being a fine set of songs dealing with sex, death and other grand relationship themes, the album was pulled from the shelves almost immediately after the first copies were circulated in the New York area, the legend having it that A&M executives were shocked and dismayed by the image of two goats resting on a grave as the front cover, fearing occult references in an era riven by Manson Family hysteria and the situation of a Zodiak Killer at large. The album has thus been rendered exceedingly rare, this welcome reissue placing it more readily into reach.

Tracklisting

1. You And I Together
2. Every Little Bit Of Love
3. She
4. Fanny Firecracker
5. Sunny Please Hold Me
   
6. Spirits & Worm
7. All I Need Is A Little 
8. You 
9. She’s The One
10. You’re Dynamite
11. She’s So Good