Comments on: DENIECE WILLIAMS - “Free”

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:33:55 +0000

(the techniques aren’t just ‘fooling the audience’ obv, they’re also techniques to allow the singer to access the emotions and feel them more during the performance - soul after all came out of a pretty intensive live performance culture so there’s the expectation of “meaning it” night after night, mood after mood - the much-maligned reality TV setup has actually brought this back as a feature)

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:27:54 +0000

As DJP says, ample opportunity to discuss specific examples in the eras to come :)

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:26:54 +0000

I think you can, or just as high a proportion: soul singing is a set of techniques designed to convince an audience that the song is felt - the techniques change to fit the expectations of the audience, is all.

By: DJ Punctum

DJ Punctum — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:22:12 +0000

Well yes but describing it would be Spoiler Bunny Orange Alert so…

By: Erithian

Erithian — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:15:21 +0000

Yes, another one that wasn’t my typical choice of listening back then, but was by no means unwelcome at the top. A quality piece of smooth soul, and you knew she meant it - can you say that of much RnB today? (cat amongst pigeons there possibly)

By: mike

mike — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:05:39 +0000

OK, having played the full-length version of “Free” several times of the weekend, I have reached the considered conclusion that it’s absoloutely bloody…

…gorgeous. One point to the Great British Record Buying Public, Gawd Bless ‘Em.

By: richard thompson

richard thompson — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 11:14:49 +0000

A lot of chart music at this time seemed contrary to the punk scene, I thought it was Minnie at the time as well, I was 14 then, Noel Edmonds must have played this one as well.

By: Waldo

Waldo — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 07:06:20 +0000

Deniece Williams was a bunch of smiles when she delivered this pert little number with a degree of luxury. “Free” was a pleasing enough little slow step but that said, it floated around as if in a dream sequence and never really came down to land any place but just drifted away tamely on a fade. My overall impression is that this is one of the chart toppers that may as well never have existed. Indeed it was only when I saw it on the listing that I was reminded of it. Forgotten also in the Waldo memory bank until I flipped through “Guinness” recently had been “Let’s Here It For The Boy”, a perfectly nice little jaunt from Deniece all of eight years later, which peaked at number two here but was number one in the US.

One thing: Deniece is, like Suzy Q, a confirmed anglophile, and, also like Suzy, no stranger to BBC Radio broadcasts. Extremely likeable and decent lady by all accounts.
.

By: Mark G

Mark G — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:41:48 +0000

It sounds like that bloke on the anti-drink driving ads, the one with the barman doing all the voices.

By: Drucius

Drucius — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 13:04:20 +0000

I noticed that, 30 years later too. God, I feel old.

It might sound pretty ordinary now, but it sounded like psycho bovver boys from outer space to me at the time.

By: Mark G

Mark G — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:37:15 +0000

Never heard that JMoped track until this morning: It’s on Mojo’s CD this month.

By: Drucius

Drucius — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:46:26 +0000

Re: 28: “I’m fairly sure that Johnny Moped’s “No One”/”Incendiary Device” was out by now. (”STICK IT IN ‘ER LUG’OLE! STICK IT IN HER OTHER PARTS!” OK, so some of this stuff has worn better.) But yeah, The Cortinas’ first single wasn’t for another month or so”

Yeah, Johnny was rather…unsubtle. Brilliant single though.

A quick skek at the Wikipedia reveals that Fascist Dictator came out in June and No-One came out in August. I think my entire punk rock record collection at this time consisted of six or seven lonesome looking singles…

By: Chris Brown

Chris Brown — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:28:31 +0000

By an odd coincidence, I heard on the radio today one of the last few I can think of that I hadn’t heard - but I’ll stop there as it’s fairly imminent.

I don’t actually think I’ve heard this one for a while, but in my head it’s an excellent tune. I looked it up on a download site and found that the Niecey album has a six-minute version and one at 2:50, so I presume the latter is the 7″ cut. The Pale Fountains version is quite good too.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:55:03 +0000

We’ll get to my chart blackspots in greater detail, but since we’re not even in my first real chart awareness yet (and not for a good while even) I’ll hold off on those details right now: autumn 86 to spring 87, basically, and I think no other time really, though there were spells where I followed the charts without much real enthusiasm for what was happening in them.

By: wichita lineman

wichita lineman — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:28:13 +0000

Re 28. Chart black-spots are intriguing. I’m sure Mike and I aren’t alone.

Mine were early/mid ‘75 when my football/Subbuteo obsession overrode everything including, it seems, listening to the radio. I remember Honey by Bobby Goldsboro suddenly being no.2 and Mud’s Oh Boy being no.1 when I’d never heard either before; I blame this blanking out on a combination of Bye Bye Baby and Telly Savalas’s mind-numbing runs at the top.

My only other lapse was ‘87. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Rod Stewart’s Every Beat Of My Heart (have I missed anything?). This was a point when I was deeply into fanzine/DIY culture, to an embarrassingly dogmatic degree.

Having said that, I don’t think I could have retrospectively picked two better moments to zone out.

By: henry s

henry s — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:25:21 +0000

Have to admit, I’ve never been much impressed with the glass-shattering vocals of Deniece Williams, Minnie Riperton et al. That’s What Theremins Are For.

By: mike

mike — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:16:25 +0000

Re: 24. I’m fairly sure that Johnny Moped’s “No One”/”Incendiary Device” was out by now. (”STICK IT IN ‘ER LUG’OLE! STICK IT IN HER OTHER PARTS!” OK, so some of this stuff has worn better.) But yeah, The Cortinas’ first single wasn’t for another month or so.

I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of Deniece’s follow-up “That’s What Friends Are For”, and am a bit gob-smacked to find that it went Top Ten in July 1977. Of all the muscial obsessions that I’ve had over the years, punk seems to have been the only one that managed to kill, albeit temporarily, my continuing interest in the singles charts.

By: will

will — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:57:42 +0000

Re: 21. I picked it up from a charity shop bargain bucket about a decade back, so it could well be.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:38:03 +0000

There won’t be a Popular entry today since I’m working on tomorrow’s DOUBLE SIZE EXTRAVAGANZA, but meanwhile here’s a poll rewind to 1965:

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2005/05/popular-65/

By: lonepilgrim

lonepilgrim — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:22:23 +0000

re #12 thanks for expressing my feelings about this song so well. The link to Chic’s ALIAF sprung to mind immediately. I’m a sucker for dreamy, ambient soul -if that’s the right term for it - I recommend ‘Sugar and Poison’ a compilation put together by David Toop a few years ago. I liked ‘Free’at the time and have grown to like it more and more - I’d give it 8.

By: Drucius

Drucius — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:59:25 +0000

Incidentally, did Johnny Moped or The Cortinas even have a single out by now? I seem to remember them coming later in the year. I expect the Step Forward and Chiswick release dates are somewhere on the interwebs.

By: Drucius

Drucius — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:55:45 +0000

I was in the same bunker, but had a sneaking regard for this. Sexy, smoochy, beautifully sung and nicely produced, a 7.

By: mike

mike — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:42:44 +0000

I remember the start of that April 21st 1977 TOTP. Eddie & the Hot Rods did “I Might Be Lying” (with new member Graeme Douglas from the Kursaal Flyers). As soon as it finished, the whole audience kind of turned their backs on them, in a “Thank God that horrible racket’s over” sort of way, and flocked over to O.C. Smith’s stage as fast as they could. Naturally, I was aghast.

Which is really the problem that I’m having with making a fair assessment of most of these first-half-of-77 hits. So deeply was I entrenched in my “JOHNNY MOPED AND THE CORTINAS WILL SAVE US ALL!” bunker mentality that just about everything else passed me by.

In my memory, “Free” is a dreary gloop-fest for The Mindless Brainwashed Masses Who Cannot Or Will Not See THE TRUTH. So I’ll go away and do some work on that perception!

By: wichita lineman

wichita lineman — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:15:42 +0000

Will, That’s What Friends Are For was the follow-up - pretty sweet from memory, good tricksy time changes on the bridge and more glass-shattering towards the end - so I’m guessing you’ve got a re-ish.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:42:50 +0000

Will #17: The picture sleeves we use tend to be from one European country or another, since UK singles hardly ever had them at this stage. So that explains the different B-Sides too.