Father Yod

Father Yod or YaHoWha, born James Edward Baker (July 4, 1922 – August 25, 1975) was the American owner of one of the country's first health food restaurants, on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. He founded a spiritual commune in the Hollywood Hills known as the Source Family. He was also lead singer of the commune's experimental psychedelic rock band, Ya Ho Wa 13.

Early life

James Edward Baker was born on July 4, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Baker earned the Silver Star as a United States Marine in World War II and became expert in Jujitsu. He moved to California to become a Hollywood stuntman and was influenced by the Nature Boys, a Los Angeles-based group of beats who lived a natural lifestyle, maintained vegetarian diets, and lived "according to Nature's Laws." Baker also studied philosophy, religion, and esoteric spiritual teachings, even becoming a Vedantic monk for a time. He later became a follower of Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh spiritual leader and teacher of Kundalini Yoga.

In 1969, Baker founded the Source Restaurant on Los Angeles's Sunset Strip. The restaurant served organic vegetarian food, with such celebrity regulars as John Lennon, Julie Christie, and Marlon Brando. Jim Baker had two other successful restaurants on Sunset Strip: The Aware Inn and the Old World.

Ya Ho Wha 13

Founded in 1973 in the Los Angeles area, Ya Ho Wha 13, otherwise known as Ya Ho Wa 13 or Yahowha 13 is a psychedelic rock band fronted by Father Yod, spiritual leader of a religious cult/commune called the Source Family. Ya Ho Wha without the vowels and spaces reduces to YHWH, the tetragrammaton. The band recorded nine LPs full of their extreme psychedelic sound with tribal drums and distorted guitars, some of which were completely unrehearsed jam sessions, others which contained more conventional rock songs.

Formation

Members of The Source Family, who lived in the Hollywood Hills in the early 1970s, decided to fuse their musical talents and spirituality by forming an improvisational, psychedelic music group. They began to press LPs in 1973, most of which were recorded after hours of meditation at 3:00-6:00 a.m. in a soundproofed garage that served as the musicians’ studio at the family's communal residence. All of the records with Father Yod’s participation were completely improvised, with no rehearsals or overdubs. Most of the albums were pressed in small runs of only 500 to 1000 copies on the Higher Key label. They were sold to the general public in Father Yod’s popular vegetarian Source Restaurant for $10 each. Though only nine LPs were produced and released, it is rumored that more than 65 albums were recorded by the group but were lost over the years....Isis Aquarian, who was the family historian, archivist and one of Fathers wives, recently found a lot of these unreleased music tapes in her archives and they are now being remastered and released through Drag City Records out of Chicago and their site www.Yahowha.org