[78-L] passing of rusty dedrick

[fnarf at comcast.net]

Were they really that culty? I got the impression they were pretty harmless trippy-dippy New Age types. Chris wrote most of that music, I imagine. I haven't heard it. 

But the Free Design has turned into a bit of a cult themselves among indie aficionados of "sunshine pop". All of their records have been re-released several times, top DJs have done remixes, and the original LPs (in gorgeous gatefolds, on Enoch Light's Project 3 label) go for megabucks.



----- Original Message -----
From: "David Lennick" <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 8:36:37 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: [78-L] passing of rusty dedrick

Unfortunately, Chris got himself into a cult known as the Starscape Singers in 
Toronto in the late 70s. Hope he came out of it okay. This was run by a dubious 
character named Kenneth G. Mills. A CD of theirs was the only one I ever 
deliberately broke when it was sent to me at CJEZ. An acolyte of that group 
nearly deafened me by approaching from behind and slapping a pair of headphones 
(full blast) on my ears outside the CBC. A number of Toronto showbiz types got 
sucked into this group. Mills fancied himself a great poobah (split that word 
for a more accurate description of him and his writings).

dl

fnarf at comcast.net wrote:
> The Dedricks were and are an amazing musical family. Rusty's brother Art was a trombonist with Red Norvo, Vaughan Monroe, and Claude Thornhill, and Art's kids Chris, Bruce, and Sandy Dedrick created some of the best pop vocal arrangements of the sixties and seventies in their criminally-overlooked group The Free Design.
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Eric Goldberg" <ericgoldie2 at yahoo.com>
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 7:16:09 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
> Subject: [78-L] passing of rusty dedrick
> 
> On Christmas day Lyle Fairweather "Rusty" Dedrick passed away after battling prostrate and bone cancer. He was a great arranger, trumpet player, educator and a really nice guy. I called him the "King of the 4th Trumpets" because I sometimes found him listed in that chair. He explained that when bands like Larry Sonn and Shep Fields came to NYC they added him to fill out the trumpet section for their recordings.
> 
> I'm sure that he was on many big band 78s although his own albums were on LP, some of them 10".
> 
> I hope that this is the worst news that we have in 2010.
> 
> Eric Goldberg
> 
> 
>       
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