| Freedom Suite | ||||||||||
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| Studio album by The Rascals | ||||||||||
| Released | March 17, 1969 | |||||||||
| Recorded | May 14, 1968 - December 18, 1968 | |||||||||
| Genre | Rock | |||||||||
| Length | 64:17 | |||||||||
| Label | Atlantic | |||||||||
| Producer | The Rascals in cooperation with Arif Mardin | |||||||||
| The Rascals chronology | ||||||||||
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Freedom Suite is a the fifth studio album (a double album) by rock band The Rascals, released in March 1969. It peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Top LPs chart and also reached number 40 on the Billboard Black Albums chart, the last Rascals album to appear there.
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Freedom Suite was an ambitious effort and something of a concept album, as musicians were wont to produce at the time. Packaging included a shiny silver gatefold album cover, colored sleeves with the song lyrics printed on them, and illustrations drawn by members of the group. The latter varied from idealistic visions of trumpeting angels to Eastern-influenced sketchings to drummer Dino Danelli's faithful homage to El Greco's Christ. The inclusion of the instrumentals—one polished track ("Adrian's Birthday," named in honor of recording engineer Adrian Barber), one jam session ("Cute"), and a Danelli drum solo ("Boom")—seemed an effort by The Rascals to establish themselves as an "album" group rather than a "singles" group.[1]
The first LP of the set contained conventional songs, while the second contained instrumentals. Various session musicians, including bassist Chuck Rainey and saxophonists King Curtis and David "Fathead" Newman, augmented the band's normal line-up on several selections.
The album contained the Rascals' last #1 hit single "People Got To Be Free," which was released in advance of the album in mid-1968. "Any Dance'll Do" and "Heaven" were also issued as singles. "People Got to Be Free" was inspired by the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Cavaliere was quoted in Billboard magazine, remarking "After King and Kennedy and what happened in Chicago, we just had to say something."[1][2]
Prior to this album, the Rascals' primary vocalists Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati co-authored most of the band's original songs. On Freedom Suite, however, that trend began to change, with Cavaliere credited as sole author of four of the album's vocal tracks. Brigati's songwriting and vocal contributions would continue to decline on subsequent albums.[2]
| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [3] |
The album was RIAA-certified as a gold record on April 21, 1969, rising to #17 on the Billboard Top LPs chart. It also reached #40 on the Billboard Black Albums chart, the last Rascals album to appear there.
It was not especially well received; critic Lester Bangs would later write that Freedom Suite suffered from "excess,"[4] while critic Dave Marsh would later write that it "sowed the seeds of the group's demise, [as it] reflected an attempt to join the psychedelic craze."[5]
Writing for Allmusic, critic Thom Jurek wrote of the album "if that outing [Once Upon a Dream] had been ambitious and even visionary, Freedom Suite, released in 1969 as the group's fifth album, was off the map. The band dug in and wrote a single LP's worth of solid tunes including a quartet of fine singles."[3]
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