Freedom Suite (The Rascals album)
| 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, Arif Mardin | |||||||||
| The Rascals chronology | ||||||||||
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
Freedom Suite is 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.
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, with a photograph of the band pasted on the front, 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 three instrumentals comprising one complete album of the two-record set—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.
The first LP of the set contained conventional songs, while the second contained the 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's content was packaged differently based on format and territory. In North America, the full Freedom Suite album, including the instrumentals, was available in a double album package on LP and on reel-to-reel tape. Cassette and 8-track tape editions, however, were packaged as either one double-play album or as two single albums and could be purchased independently. In Great Britain, only the first record of the double album was distributed, with the instrumentals and inserts omitted completely.
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