Free Your Mind by Amnesty; the eponymous seventies record that never was. Impromptu ballads and mass advice splattered against a backdrop of Latin-tinged horns, bassline cardiograms, hopscotch percussion and post-Motown vocals. That’s the picture, mister. Just add funk and free your mind.
The LP was never released prior to 2006, when it was reissued on Now-Again Records. Today, music lost in dusty back catalogues returns to the listening world through eclectic reissue labels like Numero Group and streaming services, but before there was scarce chance of rediscovering groups like Amnesty.
Bands got their shot at putting out and if they didn’t make it their material could remain studio stranded. In Amnesty’s case their label never championed the record and their works were archived: but the company did take two singles from their recording sessions for airtime and they enjoyed success on tours with headlining artists like Bill Withers, Weather Report, Kool & The Gang and a young Michael Jackson.
Free Your Mind was recorded with all the funk, jazz and soul the Indiana-based group could muster. A sound that leaps between nostalgia (for its time) and modern taste (again…), it borrows from The Meters’ early innovations in rhythm and the harmonized class of Motown soul groups like The Impressions, The Four Tops, and Indiana’s own The Jackson 5.
The two singles picked by their label, albeit catchy tracks, fail to represent the record’s breadth of styles. Appeals to an apathetic nation and political figureheads (no, not those!) feels nationalistically alienating on “Mister President,” while both the straightforward “Free Your Mind” and “We Have Love” blend some of the long mellow Funkadelic lectures on the freeing of one’s mind with Sly & The Family Stone’s low-key, prescription-grade love potions. Then this 7-min opening track “Can I Help You?” pulls out all the stops.
Plenty of “lost” records have resurfaced in recent decades, netting attention in virality, increased royalty streams, physical repressings and artist reunions. With the ease of music discovery at streaming users’ disposal, we might briefly marvel at the sheer size of a digital music catalog made available in the information age, then refocus our attention on this one gem.
An album that fell through the cracks of the 1970s that now serves as a bottled culture timepiece. Free Your Mind is loud when needed, tender during the fuzzy moments and incessantly funky. It’s worth listening to after all this time if only to entertain curiosities of “what if?” Amnesty made it big. In any case, it’s good to know that the funk is alive and well.
gone gazing 