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Free Design - The Best of Free Design
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Artist...............: Free Design
Album................: The Best of Free Design
Genre................: Pop
Source...............: CD
Number of Discs......: 1
Recording Dates......: 1967-1972
CD Release Date......: 2001
Label................: Cherry Red Records
Catalog #............: CD MRED 194
Total Runtime........: 62:29
Genre................: Sunshine Pop/Baroque Pop/AM Pop
Drawing from seven 1967-1973 albums by the Free Design, this 20-song compilation overlaps some with the other Free Design best-of (Varese Sarabande's Kites Are Fun), but each of those anthologies has a good number of songs not on the other. Each one is a reasonable intro to this soft pop/rock band, though, and this does include, naturally, the one song that would be considered essential to any best-of, "Kites Are Fun." The Free Design's world is a never-never land of fluffy good times, albeit with extremely accomplished smooth vocal harmonies. Though some sunshine pop fanatics freak out over this stuff, to many it will be too much sunshine and light at once, veering uneasily close not just to easy listening pap, but also to period late-'60s/early-'70s TV/commercial music at times. - Richie Unterberger
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All Music Guide
Chris Dedrick, the lead singer/songwriter for influential ’60s vocal pop group the Free Design died Friday after a battle with cancer. He was 63 years-old. Although not commercially successful during its prime, the group’s unique style of jazz-influenced harmonies — mixing elements of sunshine, bubblegum and baroque pop — did develop a cult-following in the ’90s and informed countless indie-rock bands like Stereolab, who even named a song after the Free Design.[L.A.Weekly.com] - Matt Collar
Biography
The commercial failure of the Free Design remains one of the most baffling mysteries in the annals of pop music -- with their exquisitely celestial harmonies, lighter-than-air melodies, and blissful arrangements, the group's records were on par with the work of superstar contemporaries like the Beach Boys, the Association, and the Cowsills, yet none of their singles even cracked the Hot 100. The Free Design originally comprised siblings Chris, Bruce, and Sandy Dedrick, natives of Delevan, NY, whose father Art served as a trombonist and arranger with Vaughn Monroe; when Chris moved to New York City in 1966 to attend the Manhattan School of Music, he recruited Bruce (now living on Long Island) and Sandy (a teacher in Queens) to form a folk group, and soon the trio emerged as a popular attraction on the Greenwich Village coffeehouse circuit.
In time, Chris began composing original material for the Free Design to perform, and with the assistance of their father, the siblings cut a demo, ultimately signing with producer Enoch Light's audiophile label Project 3. The title track from their 1967 debut LP Kites Are Fun was also their first single, cracking the Top 40 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart but reaching only number 114 on the pop chart -- somewhat amazingly, it was the Free Design's biggest hit. Another Dedrick sister, Ellen, joined the group after graduating high school, making her debut on 1968's You Could Be Born Again. "2002: A Hit Song," from 1969's Heaven/Earth, satirically addressed the Free Design's continuing inability to make a commercial impact, but still the group's chart woes continued, and with their next effort, 1970's Songs for Very Important People, they targeted a new audience: children.
Stars/Time/Bubbles/Love, also released in 1970, returned the Free Design to their adult constituency; after issuing One by One two years later, the group was dropped by Project 3, at which time they relocated from New York to Canada. There Chris Dedrick recorded a solo album, Be Free, which went unreleased; signing to the Ambrotype label, the Free Design recorded one final LP, 1973's There Is a Song, before disbanding in 1975. In the years to follow, Chris remained the most musically active sibling, forming the choral ensemble Star Scape Singers, as well as arranging and composing for the Canadian Brass. He also won a series of Gemini Awards for his scores for Canadian film and television productions. By the '90s, hipster favorites including Cornelius, Pizzicato 5, and Louis Philippe were regularly citing the Free Design as a key influence, resulting in the 1998 release of Kites Are Fun: The Best of the Free Design. The new millennium saw the Free Design convene for another album -- 2001's Cosmic Peekaboo -- which gathered Sandy, Chris, and Bruce Dedrick back together again. - Jason Ankeny (AMG)
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Tracklisting
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1. (00:01:15) Free Design - Chorale
2. (00:02:41) Free Design - Kites Are Fun
3. (00:02:16) Free Design - Bubbles
4. (00:02:43) Free Design - I Found Love
5. (00:02:35) Free Design - My Brother Woody
6. (00:02:30) Free Design - Never Tell The World
7. (00:03:18) Free Design - Love Me
8. (00:02:24) Free Design - Love You
9. (00:03:17) Free Design - I Wanna Be There
10. (00:03:29) Free Design - Daniel Dolphin
11. (00:02:56) Free Design - Starlight
12. (00:02:40) Free Design - 2002 A Hit Song
13. (00:04:18) Free Design - Children's Waltz
14. (00:03:33) Free Design - Butterflies Are Free
15. (00:03:51) Free Design - One By One
16. (00:05:17) Free Design - You Are My Sunshine
17. (00:02:42) Free Design - You Could Be Born Again
18. (00:03:15) Free Design - Kije's Ouija
19. (00:03:47) Free Design - Love Does Not Die
20. (00:03:43) Free Design - Tomorrow Is The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life
Playing Time.........: 01:02:29
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