If you're of a certain age, you remember. It was late at night in the late 80s, during one of those seven minute ad breaks that always show up when you watch TV too late.
Cut to a camper, which may or may not be at a Grateful Dead show. Two guys who look like either Tommy Chong or David Crosby hear the opening chords of "Layla" and exclaim:
"Hey, man, is that Freedom Rock? Turn it up, man!"
In one of those moments of post-Gutenberg curiosity - you know, think of something obscure, the Internet puts it at your fingertips - I decided to look back and recall just what, excactly, constituted Freedom Rock. Well, call now and you get:
They were shooting for a certain 60s nostalgia vibe that was in vogue in that era, and with some of the songs ("Get Together" and "White Rabbit" best fit the bill) they catch the patchouli. The word we're looking for here is "groovy." But some songs are chronologically right but not quite "hey, maaan" enough, Alice Cooper and the O'Jays are too late, and "Me And You And A Dog Named Boo" is just dumb.
But wait! You also get:
I think it's so groovy now that people are finally gettin' together. Indeed.
A little more granola on this volume, though they missed the opportunity by skipping Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit In The Sky." They also forgot the Coke ad, "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing," although Oasis didn't. You get America trying to be Neil Young instead of actual Neil Young. Jethro Tull is so awful that to call them "awful" is to overrate them. The Southern rock is too `70s, though I suppose Freedom Rock lets you get away with "Free Bird". Unsure whether that's the short version, the long version, or the live, "play it pretty for Atlanta" version.
Don't know anyone who actually Called Now and got the thing. I could home burn one, I suppose. But what I'd REALLY like would be a tape of the ad. Maybe there's one copy that actually sold out there, some sort of Holy Grail.
Wait a minute.
"Jump Into The Fire"? This was 1987, a good three years before Goodfellas resurrected Harry Nilsson's followup to chart-topper "Without You" from mid-chart obscurity and granted it cinematic immortality. (You know, the Day Henry Gets Busted sequence.)
And what does Freedom Rock start with? "Layla," as used memorably in the Everybody Connected With The Heist Gets Whacked sequence. ("When they found Carbone in the meat truck, it took them two days to get him thawed out for the autopsy.")
So that's who bought the one copy of Freedom Rock actually sold:
Martin Scorsese!
Just got re-acquainted with the obnoxious MARQUEE tag for that late-night TV ad (wait! slow down!) look.
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