Just over 10 years ago, singer, songwriter and guitarist Randy California swam into the Pacific Ocean to save his son from drowning. His son survived, but California never returned from the deep, blue sea.

Now, his stepfather and drummer Ed Cassidy and longtime South County musician Merrell Fankhauser, both Arroyo Grande residents, have produced a CD in California’s memory.

Fankhauser also has produced a tribute to California, Cassidy and their rock band Spirit that’s airing on Fankhauser’s “Tiki Lounge” show on Central Coast cable channels as well as in the Los Angeles area.

The CD — and especially the TV show — express the great loss Cassidy felt about the tragic death of California.

California was born in 1951 in Los Angeles to a family who owned a nightclub in Hollywood, where he was exposed to a variety of musical styles at an early age.

His real name was Randy Wolfe, but he was given the name “California” by the legendary Jimi Hendrix. When California’s family moved to New York, he ended up playing in Hendrix’s band, Jimmy James & the Blue Flames.

Around 1991, California explained the source of his stage name in an interview with Fankhauser. That interview is now the last cut on the new CD, “Stolen Guitar Blues,” and part of the TV tribute.

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“They had this group, and the drummer named Randy was from Texas, and Randy (Wolfe) was from California,” Fankhauser said. “So to keep them straight, Hendrix called them ‘Randy Texas’ and ‘Randy California.’ I thought (the interview) would be a nice way to finish off the album.”

Hendrix’s manager invited California to go to England with them, but his parents said “No.” It was a double-edged sword. Had he gone, he would have become part of the seminal Jimi Hendrix Experience.

But then he might not have hooked up with Cassidy to form Spirit, with a sound so distinctive that rumors persist to this day that Jimmy Page “borrowed” California’s guitar riff on “Taurus” when he wrote Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”

“When I started dating (Randy’s) mother, I heard this kid playing guitar, and I couldn’t believe it,” Cassidy recalled during an interview shortly after the guitarist’s death. “He was amazing. He was so talented.”

Spirit had two big hits, “I Got a Line on You” in 1968 and “Nature’s Way” in 1971, although the jazz-influenced “Fresh Garbage” from their first album also got airtime on the more underground stations.

California left Spirit in 1971 for a solo career, but the band re-formed with various members off and on over the years, sometimes playing small clubs.

He also moved to Molokai, Hawaii, where fate struck Jan. 2, 1997, when his 12-year-old son became caught in a rip current.

“Randy was trying to save his son Quinn from drowning,” Fankhauser said. “He swam out to him, boosted him onto a wave, and Quinn rode it in. When he looked back, Randy was gone. He was never found. They looked for him for days but never found him.”

A HISTORY OF MUSIC

Fankhauser and Cassidy — or “Cass,” as Fankhauser calls him — met in 1990 and started playing music together in 1994. Fankhauser is a classic surf musician — his 1960s band, the Impacts, was the first to record his song “Wipe Out.”

He’s produced albums and TV shows and performed around the Central Coast since moving here in 1958.

“My first gig was when I was 17 and I played with a clown at the Fair Oaks Theatre (in Arroyo Grande),” he recalled. “I played on stage while he went down into the audience and did his thing. I think they paid me 12 bucks for that.”

Cassidy started playing drums in 1937 at age 15, not surprisingly as a fan of the big-band sound and drummers who included Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich.

Cassidy met California around 1965 when he started dating his mother, whose family ran the Ash Grove nightclub in Hollywood.

“I was like the house drummer,” he recalled. “I played for Big Mama Thornton, a black blues singer named Long Gone Miles, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and the New Lost City Ramblers, John Lee Hooker, people like that.”

After meeting California and forming Spirit’s predecessor, the Red Roosters, Cassidy turned from blues, jazz and big-band music to rock.

Now, at 84, he’s listed in the Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest rock ’n’ roll drummer. (“Book of” was dropped from the Guinness name in 2007.)

“I get a kick out of it when I tell (Spirit fans) about the age thing,” Cassidy said. “They’ll say, ‘You were playing when I wasn’t even born yet.’ One guy said, ‘My dad wasn’t even born yet.’ I’m a 25-year-old man in an 84-year-old body.”

Cassidy’s style also has been copied.

“Pink took the drum roll from ‘Fresh Garbage’ and used it in a song,” Cassidy said. “I got calls and e-mails from irate fans saying, ‘You know what they did?’

“Well, it was all right,” he added with a chuckle. “They were cute girls.”

BIRTH OF A TRIBUTE

Since Cassidy moved to the South County, he and Fankhauser have produced several albums, including “On the Blue Road,” as well as a videotape about Cassidy’s philosophy of life and several TV shows in Fankhauser’s home-based “Tiki Lounge.”

But their “Stolen Guitar Blues” CD didn’t start out as a tribute to California, although three of its five musical cuts were inspired by him, including “No Missing Numbers.”

“After Randy disappeared, this song just came to me,” Fankhauser said. “It was like Randy inspired me to write it. After he disappeared, I told Cass, ‘My phone has been ringing lately at midnight and there’s nobody there.’

“I could hear a beeping off in the distance, and at first I thought somebody was trying to send me a fax. It went on for three days. Cass said, ‘Maybe it’s Randy trying to participate.’”

The title cut is about California’s guitar being stolen from a concert in Santa Clara, a story Fankhauser heard from Cassidy during a 1999 recording session.

California was backstage, practicing on his Martin acoustic before the show. He then put it in its case and left it in the dressing room. After the concert, it was gone.

“I said, ‘Cass, I hear a song. What if it went like this ... ’” Fankhauser recalled. “It talks about something being missing, and it sounds like it’s about a love affair with a woman — how someone took her away, how he’s going to try to find her, how he’s going to get even with that person who stole her. But you find out it’s about a guitar.”

Cassidy added, “He came up with that, and I liked the way the lyrics went and the way the melody went.”

Fankhauser said “Into the Crater” is a live cut “about how Randy’s spirit is still flying over Molokai. Suddenly, I realized this whole (CD) was a tribute to Randy.”

“Stolen Guitar Blues” is produced by JKS World Records in Germany, which is marketing it as a tribute to California, and it’s getting airplay in England, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and about 200 stations across the United States, Fankhauser said.

TO SEE, HEAR MORE

n Merrell Fankhauser’s tribute to Randy California, Ed Cassidy and Spirit will air on Fankhauser’s “Tiki Lounge” show at 7:30 p.m. on Charter Communications cable channel 2 in SLO County and 6:30 p.m. on Comcast cable channel 25 in Santa Barbara County on Nov. 25 and Dec. 2 and 9.

The show includes interviews with California and Cassidy and an unreleased Fankhauser Cassidy song.

n The Fankhauser Cassidy Band’s “Stolen Guitar Blues” CD is available at Boo Boo Records in San Luis Obispo and other independent music stores, from online sources such as Amazon.com and direct from JKS World Records at www.jks-world .com. The average price is $12.95.

n On the Web: www.merrellfank hauser.com

COMING SOON: FANKHAUSER GUITAR — Instrument is state of the art

Arroyo Grande singer, songwriter and guitarist Merrell Fankhauser displays the prototype of a new guitar bearing his signature that’s scheduled for release after the first of the year.

The electric guitar is being produced by an Oregon company called Rock Creek Guitar, which just produced a signature edition guitar for Nokie Edwards, lead guitarist of the Ventures.

“It’s got all the latest electronics,” said Fankhauser, noting the tone knob is “notched” and the tone doesn’t lose its “presence” when the tone is raised or lowered.

“It has a really unique sound, too,” he added. “It sounds like a Fender and a Gibson put together.”

— Mike Hodgson