|
The Free Design
Kites Are Fun, Heaven/Earth
Light In the Attic
2003
{8.8}
Music Myth #726: that of the harmonious family singing group - the act of brothers and sisters singing together, harmonizing around the family piano before bursting onto the national scene as stars and, in the process, reaffirming the values of hard work, family and opportunity. Forget The Carpenters, the Jacksons, The Bee Gees and all the other pill-popping psychopaths that disproved this theory years ago - it's a notion so patently false on its face, so emptily grandiose and so shoddily and desperately American, you half-expect to learn that the first family group was a little-known act from Poughkeepsie named "The Ringling Brothers."
Yet three years ago, despite all that evidence to the contrary, there was Delevan New York brother and sister act, The Free Design, making a select few believe all over again. Reformed after nearly three decades, there they were on the tribute album Caroline Now!: The Songs of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys singing an ingenious arrangement of "Endless Harmony," Bruce Johnston's whitewashed ode to the ultimate fucked-up family band. In the hands of Chris Dedrick and his siblings Bruce and Sandy, you almost forgot about all the tragic deaths, the lawsuits and the personal misery surrounding the Wilson brothers, and believed the song's sappy lyrics about "ocean lovers" who were "all cousins friends and brothers."
Almost - but then, it helped that the Dedricks were no match for the Wilsons when it came to personal troubles. Musically? That's another story. As it turned out, the wistful nostalgia and schmaltzy pop-jazz of "Endless Harmony" was a closing of the circle of sorts for a group that had been reared on a diet of their father's big band music and the Greenwich folk scene before going on to make minor waves in the late-60s sunshine pop scene. With Chris, the family's resident genius at vocal arranging at the helm, The Free Design would fashion a smooth yet distinctive vocal blend that was equal parts 5th Dimension, The Association, church choir and college a capella combo.
The group's big break came when they signed to Project 3, the fledgling pop label of easy-listening supremo Enoch Light. There, they were given unprecedented freedom during the era of songwriters-for-hire to record Chris's original compositions and the result was immediate and stunning - the fresh, breezy Kites Are Fun, showcasing Chris's knack for catchy melodies and crisp arrangements. In addition to some particularly well-considered covers, a lilting version of Simon and Garfunkel's "59th Bridge Street Song (Feelin' Groovy)" and "Michelle" (which in some ways suits them better than The Beatles), Kites Are Fun also contained at least a few classics in the soft pop genre, including the bossa nova shuffle of "My Brother Woody" and the Colgate-white orchestral pop of "The Proper Ornaments" (whose title befits a particular Stylus column).
But it was the effervescent title track for which the album would be best known. For the unfamiliar, "Kites Are Fun" is just about exactly what you'd imagine: an effortlessly gay (in every sense of the word) ditty about the pleasures of flying kites. With lyrics like "See my kite it's fun" and "All that is between us is a little yellow string" the song needs to be heard to be believed (I myself thought the song was a parody when it first crossed my path four years ago). In the hands of a lesser talent, perhaps serviceable sunshine poppers like Yellow Balloon or Spanky & Our Gang, "Kites Are Fun" might be little more than a pleasant joke or harmless piece of nostalgia. But Brother Chris gets it just right, resulting in a strikingly evocative mood piece, performed with a sincerity and precision that would make Brian Wilson himself shudder with teenage envy. The best of a great batch, it helps make Kites Are Fun a minor classic.
Unfortunately, the artistic freedom Project 3 granted The Free Design did not come without a price. Despite the commercial potential for the "Kites Are Fun" single, the inexperienced Project 3 thoroughly botched marketing the record, resulting in the first of what would be a series of frustrating releases.
With the addition of sister Ellen on their second release and her full incorporation into the group's third album, Heaven/Earth, the Free Design sound becomes decidedly more femme. If not quite as consistently innovative as the debut, the highlights on the record were remarkable, and the group's ensemble vocals now hauntingly ethereal. While leadoff track "My Very Own Angel" and the Tim Hardin gem "If I Were A Carpenter" found the band mining a slightly more melancholy territory than the debut, it was closing number "Dorian Benediction" where the group really stretched out. The result was a Gunther Schuller-like Third-Stream composition, with Chris arranging group vocals over the improvisations of a jazz combo that included Astral Weeks bassist, (and Stravinsky favorite) jazz legend Richard Davis.
The group also wasn't averse to showing a subversive sense of humor, either. "2002 - A Hit Song" rivals The Byrds' "So You Wanna Be A Rock n' Roll Star" for its acid critique of the pop music hit machine, allowing the group to channel its own commercial frustrations. The lyrics that could almost have been plumbed from the mind of a young Lou Pearlman:
So, deejay, teenie bopper answer me this:
How can this hit miss?
We've done it all right and sealed it with a kiss.
There's just one fact that we can't quite shirk:
We did all this last time, and it did not work!
With the inevitable punchline:
But! This time we're sure to have a hit, hit, hit.
Sure to be a hit
Of course, like just about everything else the group released, the song was anything but a hit, and (barring an expensive Japanese release) the record's been virtually unavailable since it's initial release in 1969. Seattle's Light In the Attic, which is planning more Free Design reissues in the coming months, has done a first-rate job on these first two, with excellent sound, artwork and copious, informative liner notes (though the too-brief mini-essays by Japanese fanboy Cornelius and Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary seem something of a missed opportunity). Heaven/Earth contains several bonus tracks, including Ellen Dedrick's solo recordings ("Nature Boy") and several instrumental versions of easy-listening classics like "Do You Know the Way to San José?" and "Scarborough Fair" with the Free Design on backing vocals - all borderline essential for aficionados.
But these releases ought to find their way into more households than just the fanatics' - more so than even the excellent Association reissues on Collector's Choice a few months back, these records are genuine treasures of Sixties pop. And don't let the title fool you: The Free Design may be profess to be "fun," but like the best soft pop, they're also smart, innovative and deceptively rewarding. As for endless harmony, well, forget about the myths: this is the real deal.
The ratings are averaged and are as follows:
Kites Are Fun: 8.9
Heaven & Earth: 8.7
Reviewed by: Matthew Weiner
Reviewed on: 2003-11-05
|