INFO ON MISC. STUDIO AND NON-STUDIO RECORDINGS / LJ and ASSOCIATES

This page was / is intended for historical perspective only. It's not quite as complete as it should be, but all will be sorted out eventually.

All important material recorded in any way will eventually be digitalized and made available. Sorry, but sadly, typical in the story of my life, everything related to music gets tended to only after dealing with all the other of my life's hassles.

The Disks... (limited print local efforts).

  • Freeman Sound / 45 (Starshine) / "Singing My Own Song" (a Fortier-McCarthy creation) b/w "16 Tons" (Travis)... (1970)... (see links on the Freeman Sound home page).
  • Old Friends and New Acquaintences / 45 (Freeman Records) / "Wanting To Be Free" (Harrow) b/w "Whiskey Man" (Wingrove)... (1971?)... Freeman Sound guitarist John Harrow's post-band project with various musicians.
  • L.J. / 45 (Peppermint) / "I Send You All Of My Love Always" (Fortier) b/w "Magic In My Hands" (Fortier)... (1974)... A somewhat frantic solo studio effort cranked out in about 8 hours featuring LJ on guitar, bass, drums, piano with vocals.

LJ Fortier / Ray Escott / Gary DelVecchio / 3 song studio project

Recorded at Peppermint Studio, Youngstown, OH ('71). (1.) "Get It While You Can" (Fortier), vocals: L.J. and Ray (2.) "If I Could Only" (Fortier), vocals: Ray (3.) "Time Is A Wonder" (DelVecchio), vocals: L.J. (Instrumentation: LJ, drums, guitar, keyboards; Gary D. guitar, bass).

Interesting examples of musical sentiments of the times. The bass and drums were recorded first, without a metronome, resulting in less than tight grooves in spots. Misunderstandings between the parties involved resulted in the whole project being shelved at the time.

"Get It While You Can" and "If I Could Only" have been featured on the Freeman Sound (and friends) tribute album as well as a CD compilation of recordings from '70 to '75 by Gary DelVecchio and associates... Contact Gary at VGREPLAY@aol.com

Previously "released" "home made" tapes

  • Into the Light / A collection of sweetly sung inspirational and testimonial songs by L.J. featuring his dubbed guitar, bass and harmonica accompanyment. (1986). Recorded at the church he attended while attempting to establish a music-based ministry. Some copies omitted "Lone Survivor"
  • Dreamy / instrumental versions of original "love song" melodies by L.J. produced through electronic orchestration (1995). LJ bought an electronic music sequencer and dived right into this project. Representing painstaking effort put forth during a half-year's spare time during a very trying phase of LJ's life, this production was probably considered so "perfect" that many may have overlooked what a laborous task it was to program all the instruments as they are heard. A series of personal difficulties and limitations of home based mass-production capabilities killed this effort to demonstrate LJ's songwriting and arranging abilities at the time.
  • This Day in December / John and L.J.'s single Christmas song production of a modified LJ early '70s original (1993). John's encouragement and the momentum of his "Say It With A Song" business resulted in John and LJ coming together and recording this song in John's home studio. Use of the song in hundreds if not thousands of email greetings resulted in the song making it to #10 on MP3's "pop and rock" chart on Christmas day, 2000. Also featured on the Freeman Sound album / CD.

"The Freeman Sound Video"

Home-made video production features a few pics of the original Freeman Sound from the webpages, home-movie footage (provided by L. Fortier Sr, J. Goodworth and J. Fulmer) of the "house on Bazetta Road", about 10 minutes of scenes of the band and audience from two nights at the Zodiac Club in the summer of '70 and the video with audio of several songs performed by Ray, Kurt, John, Jerry and LJ at the "Freestock 2000" reunion of bandmembers and friends. (The visual clarity on certain segments may appear to have suffered a bit due to multiple copying, but still, I think it all turned out pretty good). Approximate running time: 70 minutes.

Freestock w/ audio segment includes: "Cinnamon Girl" / "My Friend-Whipping Post" / "Down By the River" / "Boom Boom" / "I'm So Glad" / "Ohio" / "16 Tons" / "Singing My Own Song" (not bad for after about 30 years with only 1 night's rehearsal!)

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