PsychepediA

From: London, England

Freedom was a London prog-psych band that was formed in the second half of 1967 by Bobby Harrison (drums, vocals) and Ray Royer (guitar) soon after Gary Brooker of Procol Harum kicked them both out of that band due to creative differences. Other original members included Steve Shirley (vocals, bass) and Tony Marsh (keyboards), the latter of whom was almost immediately replaced by Mike Lease (keyboards).

In late '67, the band was asked to write and record the soundtrack to the Dino De Laurentiis produced Italian film Nerosubianco, which was released in early 1968. This obscure and underrated LP is nothing short of excellent, and highly recommended as an adder to any serious 60s psychedelic music fan's record collection. Most of the album's tracks do sound a bit like Procol Harum, but nonetheless stand out as truly original pieces, including 'Attraction', 'We Say No', 'Childhood Reflection' and 'Seeing Is Believing' to name a few. The summer of '68 saw the band sign to the Mercury label and issue a debut 45 ('Where Will You Be Tonight' b/w 'Trying To Get A Glimpse Of You') with the flipside being the better track by far. Unfortunately this record didn't sell that well prompting Mercury to quickly drop them. In early 1969, the group released a poppy, second single ('Kandy Kay' b/w 'Escape While You Can') on the little known Plexium label, but this record too went nowhere.

In 1969, Freedom went through a major overhaul when Royer, Shirley and Lease all left and were replaced by Roger Saunders (vocals, guitar, keyboards) and Walt Monaghan (vocals, electric piano, mellotron, bass), reducing them to more or less a power-trio. This incarnation of the band took on a harder, more straight forward blues-rock sound and issued a second, French and German only LP titled Freedom At Last in early 1970. Not long after, the group signed to ABC and released a well-crafted, self-titled third album, which was released during the summer of 1970. This record takes on a more prog-psych vibe than its predecessor and contains the highlights 'Nobody' and 'In Search Of Something' featured here on TWOS. These albums unfortunately made little impact as well however, which found the outfit again without a record contract.

1971 saw Monaghan get replaced by Pete Dennis (bass, keyboards, acoustic guitar, vocals) as they secured yet another record contract, this time with the Vertigo label, and issued the LP Through The Years. Also at around this time, the band toured quite extensively as the opening act for heavy hitters Jethro Tull and the James Gang, to name a few. In 1972, Steve Jolly (lead guitar) was added to the fold and the group released a fifth and final LP (Freedom Is More Than A Word) on Vertigo before finally splitting up later that year.

Artist information sources include: The book, 'Tapestry of Delights Revisited' by Vernon Joynson.