Dinosaurdays - Bobby Harrison

Bobby Harrison - Bobby Harrison was the founder/drummer/vocalist in that fantastic British blues rock outfit, Freedom, in the late sixties/early seventies. He'd also been in a number of sixties outfits, but he's probably best known for his work with Procol Harum and was there when they recorded "A Whiter Shade of Pale" in 1967. He formed Freedom in the late sixties and they released a total of five albums (if you include their debut, the soundtrack to the Italian soft porn movie called "Nerosubianco", although the line-up changed completely after it was released as the Harrison wanted to follow a more blues/hard rock direction). This solo album is "considered to be the 'missing link' in Bobby Harrison's career between Freedom and Snafu'', the band he went on to form with guitarist Micky Moody in 1974. Helping him out on this, his first solo album, were drummer Ian Paice (if you don't know where HE'S from, should you really be reading this?), guitarists Micky Moody (also Juicy Lucy, Whitesnake, Company of Snakes, Moody Marsden Band, etc) and Tony Iommi, (ditto as for Ian Paice, except this time you will be condemned to listen to five solid hours of techno music whilst being tied to a tree!), bassist Chris Stewart (Spooky Tooth, Joe Cocker,etc), keyboard player Matthew Fisher, ex-Procol Harum, bassist Walt Monaghan (ex-Freedom, Mick Abrahams Band and If), session drummer Clem Cattini (has featured with the likes of Beggars Opera - nothing like name dropping, hey??) and a few others. Juicy Lucy vocalist Ray Owen also did his bit. The album was apparently only released on vinyl in the US (Capitol Records) and it reached number 76 on the Billboard charts. When Snafu folded in the early eighties, Harrison went on to work with Icelandic funk/jazz outfit Mezzoforte and he released "Solid Silver" with them in 1987,(also released on Angel Air Records, by the way. You may recall that we featured this album as a new release a while back). Nowadays, Harrison is busy working on a new album and has also put together a new version of Snafu. He is undoubtedly one of the unsung heroes of the British blues/rock scene and he was a fine drummer in his day. Full marks to Angel Air Records for releasing these great albums. All Freedom's albums are now also available on CD, so if you were either too young or too goofed to remember this great band's material, now's your chance to catch up.

(If you have more info on this band, please e-mail us)

Biography by Gary Hill
Bobby Harrison was born in London in 1939. He began his musical career as the drummer for the proto-prog outfit Procol Harum. When he left that group, he formed a band called Freedom and was featured on four of their albums between 1970 and 1972. The following year he worked on albums by Patrick Campbell and Matthew Fisher. His next move was to Snafu in 1974; he recorded three albums with them. The first was the self-titled release that came out that same year and the last was All Funked Up, coming out in 1975. In 1978, he worked on an album called Nobody's Business by a group of the same name. He also released a solo album in the mid-'80s.