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NORMAN GREENBAUM

SPIRIT IN THE SKY

(NORMAN GREENBAUM, Erik Jacobsen)

Reprise 0885

No. 3   April 18, 1970

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Once upon a time…Mention his name and as surely as the letter B will for­ ever follow A, pop music fans

mention “Spirit in the Sky” and little else.   “Spirit” wasn’t Greenbaum’s only charting, or arguably even

his best creation, but “Spirit in the Sky” with sales scaling the 2 million mark, is now and henceforth a

rock classic, on ’round the clock “oldies” radio rotation, with a trail of appearances in Hollywood flicks,

from Miami Blues, Wayne’s World II, Maid To Order through the ozone-oozer, Apollo 13.

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“That song of mine, I hear it all over the place,” says Norman Greenbaum, ever so slowly, in a flat, but

twangy monotone.   “It helped and destroyed me in the same moment.   With that success, I failed…. It

was such an influential song, I was never able to satisfy peo­ple with anything else I did.   I never was

able to write another song that could measure up to ‘Spirit.’   It was just too special.   And it was a fluke;

certainly it wasn’t me.   I’d spent my career doing acoustic things; before and after. With that song I

stepped outside my side and something took me over.”

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It was in high school that Norm (b. Nov. 20, 1942, Malden, MA) first picked up a guitar and started

pick­ing and singing.   “From the start, my love was for the country-blues and old timey stuff that I

heard the folkie types playing in the coffeehouses in the Boston area,” says Greenbaum.   As a student

at Boston University, he worked the city’s bongo parlors and java joints.   In 1966, after years of this

scene, Norm put together what might be one of the first psychedelic bands; at the least, the world’s

first psychedelic jug band.   Greenbaum, Jack “The witchdoctor” Carrington, Evan Engber, and bal-

le­rina wanna be Bonnie Zee Wallach–collectively known as Dr. West’s Medicine Show & Junk Band­

would rub, whack, or blow on such objects as a washtub, whiskey jug, Taiwan finger piano, Tibetan

temple block, and their favorite, a 1949 Buick bumper bracket.

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“It had to be a ’49 Buick bumper bracket,” Green­baum adds.   “We tried others, even a ’50 Buick

bracket.   There’s no comparison, believe me; none at all.   On stage, we’d paint our faces and our

clothes and had a light show; these projectors would throw these wild colors all over our bodies.”

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The primary influence?   “It was Jim Kweskin’s Jug Band, though we can’t blame them for what we

were doing.   We were probably the only jug band into psy­chedelics.   This is all before the Summer

of Love, which I missed; must’ve been off on some gig.”

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Go Go Records caught the act, the other worldly persona and the oddball tunes like “Weird” and

“The Egg Plant That Ate Chicago”; issued as the band’s first single.   “Egg Plant” peaked on the

Billboard Hot 100 at #52.   Their follow-up,”Gondoliers, Shakespeares, Over­seers, Playboys, and

Bums,” failed to make a chart showing.

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“What that one is all about; you got me,” says Greenbaum. “Frankly, I don’t know if I ever knew

what it was about.   I can tell you that, it had nothing to do with Bob Dylan.   It was the last song

that I wrote that long.   I had a mentor that told me, ‘Kid, you got to keep it short.”‘

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Months later, despite the charting success of “The Egg Plant” song, the band split up.

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Norm moved to the City of Angels, and after some aborted efforts to reconstruct a jug band, he went

solo.   He was discovered by Eric Jacobsen while playing “Hoot Night” at the famed Troubadour;

Jacobsen was then producing the Lovin’ Spoonful and SOPWITH CAMEL. Reprise  issued Greenbaum’s

solo debut, the Jacobsen-produced Spirit in the Sky album, containing “Spirit;’ and such stand-outs

as “Marcy” and “Skyline.”   Despite warnings by record company heads that the “Spirit” was too contro-

versial and that religious records don’t sell worth a dink, “Spirit in the Sky” became the fastest selling

45 rpm in Warner Brothers history.   Overnight, Norman Greenbaum was a rock star.

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“I have different stories, but I’ll tell you the most popular one,” says Greenbaum, in preparation for the

tale of the making of the “Spirit in the Sky.”   “Believe it or not, that song was due to Porter Wagoner.

He used to have a half-hour TV show out in L.A., at one time.   About 20 minutes into the show he’d

religiously do a religious song.   This one time, he had this huge stained glass backdrop.  Breath-taking,

it was.   And he did this song about a man who lived deep in the mountains, who hadn’t been to church

in 20 years.   He’d been out there with his mule panning for gold, when it hit him that he needed to go

back to church; one more time.   So, he made it all the way into town–with his mule, you understand–

went through the gate and up to the church.   And there was a sign, that read: ‘The preacher is on

vacation.’   It floored me.   I fell down; plus Porter was wearing those really great clothes from Nudies.

I knew then that, God almighty, I needed a religious song.   I didn’t want to get weird about it, but it

took me months and months to get that song together.   Finally, it came together; my version of a spiritual.”

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The colossal success of the single surprised every­ one, including Norm, who did not have a touring band

ready to take advantage of the disk’s popularity.   Momentum was lost when his immediate follow-ups­ —

“Canned Ham;” a track on Norm’s second album, Back Home Again, peaked at #46 and “California Earth­

quake;’ #93–charted only moderately.

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“California Earthquake’ did okay, but ultimately it didn’t go anywhere,” Greenbaum told Creem’s Ed

Ward.   “I sat back, and I said, ‘Well, I’m not a rock and roller.   I got money–f*** it.’    And I went into

the dairy busi­ness.”   With 45 cows, Norm and his wife marketed their Velvet Acres Goat Milk in health

food stores in Berke­ley and Marin County.

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With the aid of legendary string man Ry Cooder and Fritz Richmond, an alumnus in the Kweskin Jug

Band, Norm put together his third and last solo album, the acoustic and country-bent Petaluma.   He

excitedly planned to tour in support of the effort, but divorce proceedings soon left him in a funk.

According to Jacobsen, Greenbaum’s wife got the farm, and when spotted in the declining ’70s, Norm

was “living in a reconditioned chicken coop.”

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“One day I stopped doing music,” says Greenbaum.   “I got frustrated and for quite awhile I just didn’t

do it; until last year (1995).”

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Norm refers to the unissued “Day They Sold Beer in Church” as “sort of a follow-up to “Spirit.”   “I

was under such pressure to follow ‘Spirit’ that one day I just got silly and moody and it all came

together; all these thoughts that were just up there and out there.   ‘Beer in Church’ is good.   It

needed  to be released.

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“You know, they used ‘Spirit’ in a commercial for American Express,” says Greenbaum. “They did a

kind of neat thing with it visually, with this huge airplane headin’ up high.   It gave me a lot more

faith in Ameri­can Express; but they still won’t give me a card.   They gave me money for using it, but

not the Gold Card.”