Free - BBC2 Colour Me Pop - 1969-04-12
On April 12 1969 Free appeared on the BBC2 music show 'Colour Me Pop'. This show ran from May 18th 1968, to August 30th 1969. It had a great selection of groups performing, including The Small Faces, The Move, Fleetwood Mac, Spooky Tooth, Ten Years After, Family, Trapeze, and many more. Sadly, the majority of these shows were 'lost'. That's BBC code talk for erased or dumped material, more commonly known as 'junking'. Certainly the Free film hasn't been seen since the broadcast. However here, for the first time, is a very good 'off-air' recording. This means someone recorded the performance to tape (reel) with a microphone pointed at the TV speaker. I'm so pleased they did, and I have to thank 'The Johnny Kidd Fan Club' and Thomas Schmid for this audio - which is amazing. I am very grateful. The dog barking at the end of 'Mourning Sad Morning' was in the room with the recorder - not on the TV performance!
Free, like many others, had a fifteen minute slot (some had longer) and performed
#1 - Moonshine
#2 - I'm A Mover
#3 - Songs Of Yesterday
#4 - Mourning Sad Morning
I should point out the vocals were 'live' but the group mimed to pre-recorded backing tracks that had been recorded especially for this show.
So, two songs from 'Tons Of Sobs' (ILPS 9089) released in March 1969, and also two new songs, not to be issued officially until October, when the second eponymous LP 'Free' (ILPS 9104) was released. In fact, at the time of this BBC 2 broadcast, they'd not even recorded these songs for the forthcoming record. They had however been playing them to audiences across the UK and Europe.
While this audio is a fantastic find, there is nothing else relating to Free known from this programme or broadcast. Not even one photograph. Free did perform at Au Drouot Golf in Paris a week prior to this show, and photographs from there are used in the movies here, along with the original title sequence taken from another 'Colour Me Pop' show that did survive and a couple of press clippings from my archive.
On 'Mourning Sad Morning' there are photographs from what I believe is the show at Farmery Hall in Hull (October 28th). These show Andy playing acoustic (as he is here, and providing backing vocals), with Simon (still behind the kit) playing bass. More likely playing 'Mouthful Of Grass' in the photographs actually, it still illustrates how they handled the acoustic numbers when performing them 'live', with Simon playing bass, leaving Paul to sing. Why do I think it's 'Mouthful Of Grass' in the images? Well, Paul Rodgers isn't on the stage as it doesn't have any vocals.
It's amazing for this audio to turn up. Unbelievable! I hope you enjoy the music.
