Quick Hit
“Spirit in the Sky”
by Norman Greenbaum (1969)
In 1968 he had a hit with “The
Eggplant That Ate Chicago” with his band ‘Dr. West’s Medicine Show and Junk
Band”. I don’t remember it.
Born in Wisconsin and raised in a Jewish family,
Greenbaum watched a lot of western movies and from those he got the idea for
‘Spirit in the Sky”. It was not really a Christian song according to Greenbaum.
It has become one of the staples of the hippie generation and still sounds good
– the sound was cutting edge at the time – a key example of ‘psychedelic” music
for sure.
The 1949 the Gene Autry movie entitled “Riders in the Sky”
became a huge song for Gene as well. It was originally written by Stan Jones in
1948. It got recorded by many artists and became ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky” for
Johnny Cash in 1979. There had been the
instrumental “Apache” by the “Shadows” which was widely known and hugely
popular in 1966. There was “Riders on the Storm” done by the Doors which was western
influenced quite possibly by Gram Parsons of the Flying Burrito Brothers who I
am sure crossed paths with Jim Morrison. Robbie Krieger says it was influenced
by “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend”.
