The Free Design

We’ve added some new images to our photos page. Check them out here.

We’re pleased to announce that Ultra-Vybe Records, a label based in Tokyo has released all of the original Free Design Albums as well as a “Best Of” album on CD in Japan!  The first three albums plus a singles CD were released on January 19, 2011 followed by the remaining four albums on April 20, 2011.  They are available in Japan via Ultra-Vybe’s website ( http://www.ultra-vybe.co.jp/) and through HMV Japan (http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/) among others.  Ultra-Vybe utilized all the original Free Design album art to create their releases and they look fantastic!  They also created their own art for the singles CD and it really captures the Free Design vibe.

Ultra-Vybe was established in 1986 and has been growing as a distributor and wholesaler of both physical and digital music.  Ultra-Vybe also runs several of its own labels including Solid Records, Vybe and Octave, on which it has released over 300 titles.

The Cary-Grove High School Jazz Choir is an eight member a cappella vocal group that performs jazz and popular music. We first heard Love You on the end credits of Stranger Than Fiction and knew it would be perfect for our group. We adapted the arrangement from the original so that it would work without accompaniment. We hope you enjoy it.

Thank you for coming to visit our new website! This site is owned by the band and managed by Jay Zynczak, the oldest son of The Free Design’s lead singer Sandy Dedrick.

First and foremost, thanks must be given to Robbie Baldock, who ran the previous incarnation of this website and generously donated both the domain name and much of the great content found herein. Without his assistance and perseverance in promoting The Free Design over the last two decades there wouldn’t have been such a groundswell of new interest in the band! Thanks also must go to Matt Sullivan and Sandy Wilson at Light In The Attic Records. To Matt for reissuing the original Free Design albums as well as the incredible Free Design Redesigned albums you can find on their website. And to Sandy for doing such an incredible job promoting The Free Design’s music and licensing the songs for use in TV shows and commercials, examples of which can be found here in the media section.
We would also like to thank the following people for their interest and assistance in getting the music out to people worldwide: Matt Bristow at Cherry Red Records, Stefan Kassel at Marina Records, Katsumi Kita and Jun Hasebe at Shinko Music Entertainment, Kevin Elliot at Varese Sarabande, and Nae Ok Jun at Sky Music.

Thanks must also be given to Chris (and Chris’ wife Moira), Bruce, and Sandy Dedrick for digging through their own personal archives to come up with all the band pictures and other photos you see here!

Please look around and enjoy yourself. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email Jay or post a comment and we’ll try to get back with you soon.

Click here for the audio version
The “middle-of-the-road” music genre, commonly referred to as MOR, is a grossly under-appreciated and overlooked section in much of the world’s record stores. Shop owners don’t help make things any easier, as the albums typifying this genre are usually found hiding in dusty back corners or along vertical shelves packed impossibly tight and bearing the signifiers “easy listening”, “beautiful music” or “instrumental classics.” Many younger record shoppers mistakenly write off these sections as insipid, or strictly for the over-sixty, Liberace-loving crowd. Sometimes they are right. Other times, as in the case of groups like the Free Design, they are completely, irrevocably wrong.

Hailing from the Blue Hill region of western New York, the Free Design recorded six albums for Enoch Light’s revered Project 3 Records (one of the better MOR labels, btw) during the span of five years or so in the late ’60s, early ’70s. The band’s “sound” was firmly rooted in the crisp, complex vocal harmonies of groups like The Hi-Lo’s or The Four Freshmen, though the subject matter and delivery revealed a psychedelic bent not found in their predecessors. The line-up was strictly a family affair, and consisted of siblings Chris, Bruce, Sandy, Ellen and Stefanie Dedrick. All played instruments. All sang. The only explanation for this genealogical anomaly is that the siblings’ parents were both employed as local music teachers.

Bafflingly, the group never achieved the commercial success deserved, though many would argue that their songs were superior to much of the light-psych sunshine pop dominating the airwaves at the time. This disappointment was most likely due not to poor songwriting, but to the limitations of their contract with Project 3 – which offered full creative license for the group, but little in the way of mainstream promotion. Nevertheless, their records got out and have turned into cult favorites among influential artists such as Beck, Broadcast, Cornelius, High Llamas, Pizzacato 5, and Stereolab – who even name-checked The Free Design as a song title on their Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night LP.

While original copies of Free Design albums can prove frustratingly elusive to find, the Seattle-based Light In The Attic label has thankfully reissued all of the their records on vinyl and CD over the past eight years, providing the group with a whole new generation of believers.

Q: Sandy, first of all, thanks for speaking with us.

A: You are very welcome.

Q: So, tell me a bit about your early musical memories – what were you listening to?

A: We all loved jazz because that’s what my parents played all the time. My Dad played Duke Ellington, Count Basie and all the great big band recordings. He himself was a fine trombonist and had played with Vaughn Monroe’s band, and thereafter, formed his own jazz band, which often rehearsed in our home. We loved hanging around listening and later going to sleep with the vibrations of the string bass permeating the house.

All six of us learned instruments, and as teenagers, Dad sometimes let us sit in with his band – even sing occasionally! We also listened to many of the great jazz and blues singers of the day. Then along came The Four Freshmen and The Hi-Lo’s. The Hi-Lo’s in particular were an influence on Chris’ songwriting from the beginning.«

Q: Being that the Free Design was a family affair, please set the scene for me. How were songwriting, practicing and performances geared before the first album, Kites Are Fun, was released?

A: Chris and Bruce and I moved to New York City around the same time, and because of Bruce’s initiative – he loved singing and playing guitar – we began to get together in my apartment to sing just for fun. We sang and harmonized Peter, Paul and Mary songs and friends and family thought we sounded pretty good, so we called ourselves The Village Fare and went down to Greenwich Village to sing for free in coffee houses like the Bitter End. Then Chris wrote Kites Are Fun. That was the real beginning of The Free Design, even before we had the name. With encouragement from our Dad and others, Chris wrote a second song called The Proper Ornaments which had some great brass parts. Our dad made a demo of the two songs, and my husband at that time took it around New York and almost immediately got offers of contracts from several record companies. We chose Enoch Light’s Project 3 label and recorded six albums with him in the next five years. It was an amazing time for us, having come from Delevan, New York – a tiny town south of Buffalo in farm country – moving to New York City, and suddenly launching a musical career.

The song writing at first was also a family affair, spearheaded by Chris. We suddenly had to have an album’s worth of songs, and I remember wonderful times going home on weekends and holidays and sitting around the living room, Chris and Bruce playing guitar, practicing the songs that were ready, like Kites – and writing new ones with ideas, rhymes, melodies sometimes coming from younger siblings still in high school. You’ll see on the credits on that first album the results of those good times and collaborations. Fortunately, Chris had an incredible flair for arranging as well as songwriting, so by the time we went into the studio to record, the vocals and instrumentals were all written out by him, and we and the musicians read the charts. On the succeeding albums, Chris did most of the writing, although the rest of us continued to contribute some songs.

Q: Obviously, getting to be on Enoch Light’s label must have been great. It seems like he gave lots of artistic freedom. Can you explain how the signing to the label came out? Did you meet him personally?

A: It really was great and it’s true, he gave us a lot of artistic freedom. We were able to do mostly our own original material, with two to four covers of songs he suggested – but he accepted our choices in that realm as well.

When our sister Ellen graduated from high school he agreed to expand the group to include her. One of the greatest things about being on the Project 3 label was the fact that in every way, the label was synonymous with quality. We found ourselves in every session singing with the top musicians in New York City, in the finest studio with the best engineer, Phil Ramone. I still love listening to our recordings, knowing who was playing those incredible lines and solos and remembering the sense of awe we had at the time. Enoch was always present at the sessions, as was my Dad. Both of them were keen listeners and quiet but great encouragers. We never regretted signing with Project 3.«

Q: As the Kites Are Fun single hit the local charts, were you all playing many shows at the time? If so, what did the Free Design show look like?

A: We didn’t ‘go on the road’ immediately. Amazingly, we began to get TV appearances first, beginning with Johnny Carson’s ‘Tonight Show’ – then many appearances on Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett etc. Even Captain Kangaroo and a two-week stint on Arthur Godfrey’s radio show.

The shows we did do at first started out simply with Chris and Bruce playing acoustic guitars, and me playing tambourine to accompany our singing. Later, my father’s company, which was beginning to publish the songs, began to buy us sound equipment, a keyboard which I played, electric bass and guitar, etc. For a comparatively short time, we even all got out instruments some of us hadn’t played since high school; my alto sax, Ellen’s trumpet, Bruce’s trombone. Chris wrote us parts, and led with trumpet, which he was majoring in at the time in the Manhattan School of Music – and, after singing a few verses, we’d grab our instruments and play a rousing chorus. That was fun but we dropped it soon enough.

When we started getting serious about performing more widely, Bob Papaleoni, ‘Pappy’ we called him, joined us on drums. Then later, after a stint in the air force, two of Chris’ friends and fellow musicians from the Airmen Of Note – Gary Gauger and Tom Szczesniak – joined us. Gary on drums and Tom on keyboards and bass. A really good band!

We played some clubs, but more often in universities, sometimes doing workshops with their choirs before an evening concert. We also did special concerts with symphony orchestras, which were wonderful! This development of a performance career happened over the span of time in which we were recording all the albums.«

Q: Even though the songs are whimsical and richly melodic, there seemed to be a slight psychedelic bent to them. Was that scene much of an influence at the time?

A: I know we were all influenced by the atmosphere of the times, and were searching, like so many others, for meaning in our lives. We weren’t into drugs because we didn’t feel the answers would be found there. But we were very deeply into music. Just speaking from my own experience, here’s a short vignette: as a 13-year old, I went to a Stan Kenton concert and was blown against the back wall when the whole brass section stood up to play. I didn’t know what hit me, but went home to write in my diary that, ‘I have to go into music because of how I felt hearing those sounds – I just know music will bring me closer to the meaning of life!’ And it did.

In an interview Chris once did, he described our music as ‘Blue Hill music’. Blue Hill is the beautiful area of rolling hills in western New York State where we grew up and which inspired much of the whimsy and melody of his songwriting, as well as the songs the rest of us wrote.

Q: Why do you think mainstream success was so elusive? Why did you decide to call it quits in 1972?

A: Our chart success was elusive because Project 3 was not a rock ‘n’ roll label but an MOR label until they signed us on, and simply wasn’t set up to quickly distribute singles and generate sales when airplay for Kites Are Fun started happening. They did gradually get our albums out there. In retrospect, especially considering the benefits we are reaping now, it was a good thing to have signed with Enoch Light. I wonder if this wonderful body of original songs would ever have been recorded if we had signed with another company. We also never went on the road for any length of time to promote our recordings because of family, school and then air force commitments.

We never formally decided to call it quits. In 1972, Chris moved to Canada and it took several years before my sister and I joined him. We recorded our last Free Design album mostly in Toronto during that time on another label.

Q: And you went on to perform in the Star-Scape Singers? That seemed like still quite a family affair, with Chris still composing songs even. What was the difference in mentality?

A: We did. Chris, Ellen and I, as well as our younger sister Stefanie, became the nucleus of this ten-voice ensemble. Chris had begun to set to music the spontaneously given poetry of philosopher/musician Kenneth G. Mills. The group expanded into what became The Star-Scape Singers. I would say that the difference in mentality was a more classical, choral and complex approach – but what was always in our hearts didn’t change, and that was the love of music and the conviction that deep involvement in music could bring us closer to the meaning of life, as that 13-year-old girl simply put it.

Q: What did the ’80s and ’90s hold for you?

A: Music, music, every day, and lots of traveling! As Star-Scape we often travelled and performed in Western and Eastern Europe, as well as in the States – we sang in Carnegie Hall several times – and Canada.

In the ’90s, Chris was writing a great deal for film and television, winning four Gemini awards and 17 nominations for his television documentaries, and a Genie award for his musical score for Guy Maddin’s The Saddest Music In The World.

Then it was in the 1990s that renewed interest in the Free Design began to surface, much to our amazement. First in Japan, then in other countries such as Spain and the UK.

Q: How does it feel to be influential to so many great contemporary bands, especially in Japan, like you say. Do you see many similarities?

A: It actually feels great. Wonderful! I honestly feel that The Free Design offered something unique, honest and very musical – a slice of life – not just our life, but a wonderful tapestry of many wonderful moments that could be experienced by anyone living and loving music. I love that these great groups have re-designed and expanded upon our songs and sound. Of course, I have heard them and really enjoyed what they have done. I wouldn’t say we are similar, but our music is certainly complimentary. It would be fun to meet them one day, but Japan is very far away from Canada. However, anything is possible.

Q: How did the collaboration with Light in the Attic come about?

A: I credit Joe Zynczak, my ex-husband with initiating this collaboration. In fact, when Enoch Light passed on, Joe bought the Free Design masters from Project 3 and was instrumental in the reissues that began happening in the 1990s in Japan (Shinko Music), Spain, (Siesta), the UK (Cherry Red), and the USA (Varese Sarabande).

Light in the Attic is an incredible company in Seattle, Washington that reissued all of our albums on vinyl and, for the first time on CDs, between 2002 and 2005. They also have been responsible for many sync licenses for Free Design songs to be used in movies, television shows and commercials. Now that Joe has passed on, my son Jay, who is now a lawyer specializing in intellectual properties and copyright law, has continued the association with Light in the Attic as they reissue Free Design albums once again. He has also created a Free Design website which was launched just this past week. My younger son, Aaron, is a banker and is taking care of all the financial aspects of this venture. You may begin to see how fortunate I am!

Q: What are you up to these days? What does the immediate future hold?

A: I am involved in several music projects, most of them focused on children. However, the project closest to my heart right now has to do with Chris’ music. As you may know, my brother Chris passed away on August 6, 2010 after a long and courageous struggle with cancer. His wife Moira and I, in going through many of his computer and paper files, found so many beautiful songs that were never recorded. I’ve chosen 15 or so of them, the ones that I just love, and am in the process of recording them as a tribute to Chris and his wonderful musical gifts. Chris believed so strongly in recording music with live musicians as opposed to the common practice today of using computer technology. A fund was set up in his name to help musicians who wanted to use real musicians in their projects. This is my contribution to that fund and that idea. Nine songs have already been recorded with four of the finest musicians in Toronto. Four more songs to go! Tom Szczesniak, who played keyboards and bass with the Free Design, has put this band together.

To me, all that has been happening with the music of the Free Design in recent times could be summed up in two of the lines from one of Chris’ songs called Star Magic: Life is a perfect circle, and love is its centre’.

There is so much more to tell, but I feel that this is a good signing-off place. I thank you so much for the opportunity to tell at least some of the story of The Free Design.

Chris Dedrick was the leader of the New York sibling pop group the Free Design in the 1960s. The Free Design didn’t have any big hits, even though they put out a string of excellent pop albums with famous producer Enoch Light, but there was a resurgence of interest in the band’s sound in the last decade or so. When their albums were re-released by Light in the Attic Records starting in 2003, I picked them up on a hunch, never having heard the band. The Free Design made an immediate and lasting impact on me with their jazzy but innocent pop songs, bolstered by Enoch Light’s immaculate production. I blame the Free Design for my continuing obsession with 60s vocal pop and sunshine pop in particular – in the last week, I’ve picked up albums by Jan & Dean, Harpers Bizarre, the Mojo Men, and Chad & Jeremy – groups I wouldn’t have gotten into without the music of Chris Dedrick.

But nothing else is quite like the music of the Free Design. Chris Dedrick was the group’s main composer, arranging clever melodies and intricate harmonies for his siblings to sing. The youthful themes and kookiness gave the band a unique perspective as well – songs like “Kites Are Fun”, “Daniel Dolphin”, “You Could Be Born Again”, and “Close Your Mouth (It’s Christmas)” come from a unique place, perhaps a reflection of a family culture that the close-knit Dedrick siblings had created together. By the time that the Free Design parted ways in 1972, Chris Dedrick had relocated to Canada, where he continued to work in music, eventually becoming an award-winning composer of film and TV scores. Among his best work is the score to Guy Maddin’s excellent movie The Saddest Music in the World.

Today, Dedrick’s influence can be heard in the music of groups from the Super Furry Animals to Stereolab, and his music can be heard in a variety of locales the band never would have dreamed of in 1967 – for example, the children’s show Yo Gabba Gabba (a favorite at my house) has featured several different Free Design songs. The Free Design CDs are mostly out of print at this point, but Light in the Attic Records has them on LP, and high-quality downloads are readily available as well. They are worth tracking down. Dedrick was 62 when he passed away August 6, 2010 at his home in Canada.

From Wires and Waves, Nathan J.

Q: Sandy, let me start by saying I actually saw Free Design at the 1967 Auto Show here in Syracuse, New York, held at the Onondaga County War Memorial.

A: Oh, my goodness.

Q: I don’t get to say that to many people.

A: That’s amazing!

Q: I remember seeing and hearing a girl singing “Kites Are Fun”.

A: Yes, that was our song. That was me and my two brothers.

Q: I thought at the time that’s a rather strange title for a song. Did you write that song?

A: No. Actually Chris wrote it, my brother. It’s the initials of his girlfriend at the time, who he married after that. Her name was Kathy Ann Fabian. So, it was her initials.

Q: I see. How long did it take Chris to write that song?

A: I don’t know exactly, but not very long I don’t think. He was pretty quick when he was inspired. (laughs)

Q: And that song went to number one in Buffalo (New York)?

Q: It did.

Q: Nationally, did it ever crack the Top 40 market?

Q: It never cracked the Top 40. It cracked the Top 100.

Q: The song received airplay, but didn’t sell all that well?

A: That’s right. Actually it did have airplay in New York. I remember I was teaching in Long Island and driving in a car pool and hearing it on the radio and having to drive off the road, we were so excited. (laughs) And then I heard my brother’s voice on the radio. He had called in to thank them for playing it. They put him on the air right away and they kept asking him questions. Yeah, it was pretty exciting. We didn’t expect that. (laughs)

Q: Why didn’t the airplay translate into sales for the record?

A: Well, we signed with Project Three, which was Enoch Light’s company. His company was more middle of the road. He signed us on wanting to get into this younger market. He was used to putting out albums I think more than singles, more than following through on this kind of thing. I think that’s what happened. But we signed with him because he was incredible. He gave us artistic freedom. We were offered contracts from RCA Victor and a couple of other companies, but realized they would tell us what to sing basically. We opted to sign with Enoch Light and we never regretted it really. We couldn’t have recorded all the original songs we did if we hadn’t.

Q: Did you get your royalties?

A: Eventually. (laughs) We got our royalties in the last ten years actually. My sons have been working on it, straightening out everything. Enoch Light passed on. The masters were bought by my children’s father, my ex-husband, at the that time. That was back in the ’90s. Then he started getting re-issues happening. I think people in Japan were already interested. So, he started pursuing getting compilations and re-issues happening. And then he passed on and it fell to my sons and they’ve been doing an incredible job, actually getting royalties out and different things happening with the songs from our albums.

Q: Are your sons lawyers?

A: My eldest son is a lawyer. He’s in to intellectual properties and copyright. So he knows the business very well. My younger son is a banker and he’s taking care of the financial part of it. So I feel pretty lucky.

Q: How did you get that booking at the Syracuse Auto Show?

A: I don’t remember. I honestly couldn’t tell you that. It’s so long ago.

Q: Were you well-known in Syracuse?

A: Well, I think we were well-known in Buffalo because we came from a small town forty miles south of Buffalo. Therefore, Rochester and Syracuse, that whole area, really all the way down to New York City where we lived at the time knew about us.

Q: – As I recall, there wasn’t much of a stage for your Syracuse appearance. You were all sort of crowded together in one tiny space.

A: You’re probably remembering it better than I am. I remember we sang on the same stage as Roy Orbison. I think that was the show in Buffalo.

Q: Wikipedia describes your music as both “Sunshine Pop” and “Baroque Pop”. Do you like those terms?

A: I don’t see where Baroque Pop comes in. There is a lot of counter point. Chris actually arranged everything we sang that was written down. We started out doing things for fun, a Peter, Paul And Mary repertoire and so forth. But when we got a contract, it was all written out and there was a lot of counter point and not Baroque in the sound of Baroque music, but just that style of writing. It doesn’t sound like those titles. I don’t know what you would call it really.

Q: I’d call it a Pop group.

A: Pop group for sure. Soft Rock I guess.

Q: Other than the car show in Syracuse, did you ever play any other venues?

A: Not that I remember.

Q: How long was Free Design together?

A: 1967 until 1972. We recorded in those years.

Q: You recorded seven albums in those years?

A: Yes, we did. We did six albums with Project Three and one with Ambro Type.

Q: To support those records, did you do a lot of road work? Did you tour?

A: We opened for other acts. I remember we opened for Sonny And Cher. We did some touring, but not too much because I was married and having children. We sang a lot on television actually.

Q: What TV shows did you appear on?

A: We started out with The Tonight Show, which was rather amazing, after “Kites Are Fun” came out and we were on Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett, Mike Douglas about thirteen times.

Q: – He must’ve liked you.

A: – He did. He was a family man and he liked our style.

Q: You were on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson?

A: Yeah. Right.

Q: Do you remember the year?

A: Probably ’68.

Q: He was where? New York? L.A.?

A: New York.

Q: You must’ve met Johnny Carson then.

A: We did, just on the air. We didn’t meet him before or after.

Q: What songs did you perform?

A: We played “Kites Are Fun”. I can’t remember if we played a second. “Kites Are Fun” for sure.

Q: How is it you and your brothers got interested in the music business?

A: Our Dad was a trombonist with Vaughn Monroe. Then he got polio and couldn’t continue. He was a big encourager. He taught us all the instruments and encouraged our singing and made a demo for us. That’s how we got the contract. Then he was managing us, published us ’cause he had a publishing company. It’s a real family story basically.

Q: I guess I can say with a fair amount of certainty that “Kites Are Fun” was your only hit?

A: It was the one and only one that made the charts, let’s put it that way. I know there were several others that Chris wrote that should’ve been hits, for sure. There was one called “One By One” and one called “I Found Love”, which was used on The Gilmore Girls program. There was one I wrote with my husband when my sons were born called “Love You” that was put on a children’s album. Just recently that’s kind of re-surfaced along with all the other Free Design things and used in a movie and some Toyota commercials. It’s just so interesting what’s happening! Light In The Attic has done the re-issues. It’s a tremendous company out in Seattle, Washington and because they re-issued all of the albums on CD and vinyl as well, I think that’s where all the interest in getting songs for movies and commercials is coming from. That’s a wonderful thing.

Q: What keeps you busy these days?

A: I’m a retired music teacher from the public schools. My brother Bruce is still teaching in the public schools. I’m teaching privately and have choirs. I’ve stopped singing for awhile, but just lately started singing in an opera company just for the fun of it. A lot of fun actually. My brother Bruce has a group where he is down in Long Island. Chris, as you know, passed on in August (2010). Our main focus up until ’72 was recording. We recorded at A and R studios with Phil Ramone, who as you know was one of the greatest engineers and now producers. He was incredible. Enoch Light hired the very best studio musicians, just a line-up of Who’s Who on our albums that make me keep listening to them. The musicians are so fine.

Q: You probably didn’t spend a lot of time in the studio in the ’60s, did you? Everything was done relatively fast, wasn’t it?

A: Pretty quickly actually, but mostly because everything was written. Chris made the orchestrations and the vocals. We practiced the vocals before we went into the studio so we could do two or three songs in one session.

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