anybody a fan of The Free Design?

a family group formed in the mid 60's, The Free Design comprised siblings Chris, Bruce and Sandy, and later Ellen Dedrick, and featured beautiful vocal harmonies, catchy melodies and inventive musical arrangements of originals and covers, courtesy of group leader Chris Dedrick. Trippy, Psych/Pop/Jazz/Folk--like Rotary Connection, they were never a commercial success, but their influence continues to surface today through hipster groups like Stereolab, Cornelius and the Pizzicato Five (their 1970 song, "Bubbles' was covered for the "Powerpuff Girls" soundtrack) — they were often compared to groups like like the Beach Boys, the Association and the Cowsills, but none of their singles ever entered the Top 100.



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 — it was the Free Design's biggest hit.they went on to put out 6 more albums, between '68 and '73; You Could Be Born Again(1968), Heaven/Earth (1969) Stars,Time Bubbles, Love(1970), Songs for Very Important People(1970), One By One(1972), and There Is A Song(1973)

After disbanding in 1974, Chris remained the most musically active , helping to form the choral ensemble StarScape Singers as well as arranging and composing for the Canadian Brass. He also won a series of Awards for his scores for Canadian film and television productions. in 2001, the Free Design reunited for a new album — Cosmic Peekaboo


My favorite Free Design tracks:

Kites Are Fun
My Brother Woody
Don't Turn Away From Me
Ivy On A Windy Day
I Like the Sunrise
59th Street Bridge Song
Light My Fire
Never Tell The World
I Found Love
Starlight
Girls Alone
The Proper Ornaments
[This message was edited Tue Aug 3 14:16:05 2004 by paligap]

i dig me some free design, but i find that one best-of anthology will tide me over and the stuff they recorded in recent years is kinda "eh". the "kites are fun" anthology is wunnerful.

Who dat is? Never heard of them. But if their "Light My Fire" is the same as the Doors/Jose Feliciano/Amii Stewart version they can't be half bad.

My mom has a couple of their albums. "Important People" and "Stars". I heard the records from her.

I like them well enough - there's a lot of chaff to be filtered out on their albums, but the wheat is very, very good. My Very Own Angel is one of my honest-to-god favourite songs.

Oh My God. I never thought ANYONE would have EVER heard of this group. You really pulled one out from left field, paligap! My folks were in a local pop group in Buffalo and used to cover Kites Are Fun live and they also used their arrangement of Light My Fire as well (everyone had an arrangement of Light My Fire at the time)

My Brother Woody was my favorite on the record! They later did the title song from Butterflies Are Free. They were so hippy-dippy.

I was three years old and totally into them!

time for weekend record diggin' ....again paligap hippin' folx togood music

Jestyr said:

Damn! That's Cool!! "My Brother Woody " is one of the first songs I remember hearing as a child...My parents were always playing their records...

paligap said:

We must be around the same age, then! Are you from the East Coast? I wonder if they were more of a local phenom.

Jestyr said:

I think they were--I'm from DC, and everybody who heard of them back in the day seems to be on this side of the country...

paligap said:

That makes sense - they were from Delavan, New York - just outside of Buffalo and wound up living in New York City during their heyday.