There have been many great songs written about Freedom, and America, over the past few centuries, but none have moved me more musically than this sleeper from BREAD in the early 1970's called Mother Freedom.
When I was a mere teen, barely a teen, several of the women in our social group were particularly smitten with the group Bread and their smaltzy love songs. Good songs, mind you, but smaltzy. Then the killer surprise came on their album as all the guys in our group of friends were about to fall off into a coma with all of the sugar coated lyrics when MOTHER FREEDOM came on. WOW! Where the hell did this song come from with the group Bread, and why didn't they do a whole album of stuff like this tune? It's been one of my favorites for nearly 40 years, and long before ipods and such I was making music tapes and then music cd's to listen to with my person mix favorites on it, and this tune is on a bunch of compilation listening cd's.
By the way, the comments on youtube suggest that this video posted above was from a concert after their first hiatus, making it from around '76 or '77. That could be, I don't know enough about the group to know any of that. What I DO KNOW from watching that video is that they had a killer drummer with feel, soul and chops for days, and the only person overshadowing the drummer was the Les Paul equipped lead guitarist to his right on the elevated pedestal who was doing all of the solo action in that song.
MAN! That cat can play guitar. I'm wondering if he and the drummer were hired guns for that tour or whether they were members of the band, because they are smoking hot players! I'm going to have to record a version of this live version of the song just because that guitar solo is so good, and trust me, nowadays it takes a momentous solo to make me stand up and take notice. The first solo through in the video above I just started dancing in the computer chair, and made a note to mention this excellent player in this post, and the second solo just made my mouth hang open and say...dang...that boy plays good.
So I'll do some investigating and see if I can discover who these players were, because I'm curious if they are someone I've heard before and just didn't recognize in the video or if they've totally been off my radar the last near 40 years as great players.
I want to dedicate this to a Freedom Fighter all the way around the world, Ms. Eman al-Obeidy, who says she has made a surreptitious escape from Libya to Tunesia. Good for her!
I wish someone in our government would bring this hero to our country and give her refugee status. She's educated and more importantly, motivated to change some things in this world she knows about. I feel certain crime victim's groups, women's groups, sexual assault survivors groups and others would rally around her and protect her and provide for her were she brought here, but I'd step up to the plate like countless other Americans would and contribute some small amount of money to help this hero to humanity get safe again.
I wonder why some of the more weathy folks who are engaged in media-politics, and I don't know any other word to describe people like Arianna Huffington or CNN's Anderson Cooper. How do you report the news and not help some of those you meet? Why didn't someone, anyone at CNN say "we've got to get this person out of Libya so they can live and survive?"
It would be inspiring to see some media mogul like Huffington charter a jet and pull the diplomatic strings to make something like this happen for this young lady, because everyday people like you and I simply don't have the financial or political wherewithall to do it ourselves. I'm not picking on Ms. Huffington, because there are hundreds of other rich stars and celebrities who could do a good deed every now and then for humanity. But I use Ms. Huffington because although I don't often agree with her politics, I think she is a person who is trying to make the world better. And we need more of those types of people in the world.
In any event, as I sit waiting for news that Arianna and Sean Penn and Matt Damon and Sarah Silverman and {insert names of policically active celebrity pundits here} have pooled just small portions of their millions and agreed to go rescue Ms. al-Obeidy, somehow I wonder why our First Lady or the Secretary of State has not made the rescue of Ms. al-Obeidy a priority.. I just know these stars will be calling their Senator friends and maybe even President Obama's cell phone and getting the red tape cut away so that the rescue of Ms. al-Obeidy could occur immediately.
I know from talking to a lot of ordinary folks that many of us consider Ms. al-Obeidy an uncommon hero. I hope that someone with the means and power to actually help rescue her and bring her to safety in this country does so. And Mr. Anderson Cooper, I'm talking to you, dude.
It's all about Mother Freedom, Anderson and Arianna, and all those of your ilk who have the soapbox and the publicity and the machines to let your opinions be known. Now make the world a better place.
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