The Free Design was a Delevan, New York–based vocal group, whose music can be described as sunshine pop and baroque pop. Though they did not achieve much commercial recognition during their main recording career, their work later influenced bands including Stereolab, Cornelius, Pizzicato Five, Beck and The High Llamas.
Early life and career
The members were all members of the Dedrick family: Chris Dedrick (12 September 1947 – 6 August 2010), sister Sandy and brother Bruce were the original lineup. Chris Dedrick wrote most of the songs. Younger sister Ellen joined the group later, and youngest sister Stefanie (1952–1999) joined near the end of their initial career. Their dad, Arthur, was a trombonist and music arranger. Their uncle Rusty Dedrick was a jazz trumpeter with Claude Thornhill and Red Norvo. They formed the band while living in New York City. Chris has said the group was influenced by vocal groups like The Hi-Los (who performed in Greenwich Village frequently at the time) along with Peter, Paul and Mary and the counterpoint experiments of Benjamin Britten. Their trademark sound involved complex harmonies, jazz-like chord progressions and off-beat time signatures, due to the classical training by Chris.
The band released seven albums from 1967 to 1972, the first six on Enoch Light's Project 3 label and the last one, There is a Song, on the Ambrotype label. For the most part, they were accompanied on the albums by studio musicians.
Bruce Dedrick produced the 1969 single "You're Never Gonna Find Another Love", a Mickey Nicotra composition for The Sermon, which became a hit for the group. In addition to the production, the background vocals were provided by members of the Dedrick family.
Post-breakup
After the band's breakup in 1972, Chris Dedrick recorded a solo album, Be Free, which went unreleased until 2000. He moved to Toronto, Canada, where he became a music producer, arranger, as well as a classical and soundtrack composer. He worked with directors Guy Maddin and Don McKellar, winning a Genie Award for Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World. He also made music for The Ray Bradbury Theater TV series. In 1997, Dedrick won a Gemini Award for his work on the television series Road to Avonlea. Chris was nominated a total of sixteen times for Gemini awards, winning a total of four, the others for Million Dollar Babies, Shipwreck on the Skeleton Coast and The Great Canadian Polar Bear Adventure. He won a SOCAN award for Tripping the Wire and a Hot Docs award, also for Shipwreck on the Skeleton Coast.
Chris, Sandy and Ellen became the core members of The Star-Scape Singers in 1976, a classical vocal ensemble led by Dr. Kenneth G. Mills. Chris Dedrick also served as the group's main composer. The group performed and toured extensively throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Revived interest and later years
During their career, The Free Design did not gain commercial success. They remained in obscurity after disbanding in 1972. Starting in the mid-1990s, interest in them began to grow as part of a general resurgence of popularity in easy listening and sunshine pop from the 1960s and 1970s. In 1994, Japanese musician Cornelius reissued The Free Design catalog on his Trattoria label. In 1998, the Spanish Siesta label released four compilation albums of their music. Stereolab named a 1999 single "The Free Design" (though the song itself had no direct connection to the band).
In 2000 the band re-grouped, after a nearly 30-year retirement, to record the song "Endless Harmony" on the Beach Boys tribute album Caroline Now!: The Songs of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. This experience convinced them to record a new full-length album, 2001's Cosmic Peekaboo, which featured the original lineup (Chris, Sandy and Bruce) in addition to Rebecca Pellett, who had previously been Chris Dedrick's musical assistant for several years.
In 2001, the label Cherry Red released a Best of Free Design compilation. The Free Design song "I Found Love" was included on the 2002 Gilmore Girls soundtrack. From 2002 to 2005, the original albums were reissued in the United States by the Light in the Attic label. In 2005, the label put out The Now Sound Redesigned, an album of Free Design remixes from established acts like Stereolab, Super Furry Animals and Peanut Butter Wolf.
Stefanie Dedrick died on April 5, 1999, from the effects of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Chris Dedrick died on August 6, 2010, from cancer, at age 62. According to a message posted on his official site by his wife Moira, Dedrick died “after a week of increasing radiance, yet with rapid physical decline.”