Freedom

Freedom originated as an offshoot of Procol Harum when guitarist Ray Royer and drummer Bobby Harrison assembled the group. The pair had appeared in Procol Harum’s original configuration on the landmark single “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” yet Gary Brooker promptly replaced them with his former Paramounts colleagues Robin Trower and Barry Wilson. Freedom’s initial recordings mirrored Procol Harum through prominent organ and piano textures alongside forceful guitar, while also embodying the final phase of British psychedelia as it edged into progressive rock.

Even so, the band pursued a lighter, more pop-oriented variant of psychedelia that aligned more closely with Traffic than with Procol Harum. This first lineup issued only two singles during 1968 before disbanding, though it had also supplied the soundtrack to Dino De Laurentis’s little-seen Italian film Attraction/Black on White. The resulting album received only a restricted Italian pressing—so restricted that the musicians themselves remained unaware of its release. Engineered by Eddie Kramer and Glyn Johns, the recording resurfaced on CD in 1999 and stands as a capable, if imitative, example of late-1960s British psychedelia.

Later in 1968 Harrison rebuilt the band from the ground up, leaving himself as its sole surviving original member. Subsequent albums from the late 1960s and early 1970s adopted the heavier, harder, blues-inflected direction then prevalent in British rock. These releases occupied the middle or lower ranks of a crowded market and offered little to distinguish them. The group nevertheless supported Black Sabbath and Jethro Tull on American tours before dissolving in 1972 following further personnel shifts. Harrison went on to sing lead with the little-known Snafu, while guitarist Roger Saunders—part of the later lineup—pursued session work, joined Medicine Head, and performed with Gary Glitter’s band throughout the 1980s.