Ed "Cass" Cassidy (born May 4, 1923, Chicago) is an American drummer who was one of the founders of the rock group Spirit in 1967.
His family moved to Bakersfield, California, in 1931, and he started as a professional musician in 1937. He was in the Navy during World War II, and after his discharge worked at many jobs before becoming a full-time musician again. At one time in the late 1940s he played 282 consecutive one-nighters in 17 states. He worked in show bands, Dixieland combos, country and western bands, and on film soundtracks, as well as having a brief stint with the San Francisco Opera.
In 1950 he enrolled at college to get a musical teaching credential, but after about a year decided to leave and move to southern California to meet more jazz musicians and perhaps form a group of his own. During this period he performed together with many leading jazz musicians including Art Pepper, Julian Cannonball Adderley, Roland Kirk, Lee Konitz and Gerry Mulligan.
With Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder, he formed the Rising Sons in 1964. After that, he formed the Red Roosters in 1965, with his young stepson Randy California, Jay Ferguson and Mark Andes. Adding John Locke, they became Spirit in 1967. He sported a shaved head, which was unusual at that time; always wore black; and instead of the double-bass drum kit that was popular at the time, he used a single large parade bass drum turned sideways, with pedals on each side. He had a proclivity for playing extended drum solos with his bare hands instead of drumsticks, which influenced Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham to do the same.
John Locke FRS ( /ˈlɒk/; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704), widely known as the Father of Classical Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work had a great impact upon the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.
Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as Hume, Rousseau and Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to pre-existing Cartesian philosophy, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception.
Plot
Because town cut-throat Phil Randall wants the ranch owned by "Pop" McGee on which is located a valuable silver deposit, he frames McGee on a cattle rustling charge, and the old man is sentenced to hang. "Boots" Annie is determined to save him, so she sends for U.S. Marshals Nevada Jack McKenzie and Sandu Hopkins, who rescue McGee from jail on the eve of his hanging. They then set out to gather the evidence to clear McGee and convict the real villains. Swede Larson and Sheriff Jed Hawkins, working with Randall, conspire to get the marshals out of the way and hire the Dawsons to do the job. The job backfires and the first Dawson is shot, but before the dies, he talks and enables Nevada and Sandy to make arrests and clear McGee of any charges.
Keywords: 1880s, b-movie, b-western, blacksmith, cattle-rustling, cattleman, crime-confession, crooked-sheriff, death, deception
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Hair-Trigger Action.....Hurricane Adventure!