MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.9 'The Extra Mile'

Last volume of this awesome recording collection by the gifted M. Free.
"(To Be) The Best Of The Best" from the soundtrack of the movie 'Best Of The Best II' isn't an unreleased track, but was requested to be included by some readers. This is the full version with the orchestrated intro.
There's also a pre-Signal demo for the band/project 'The Game' featuring Free on vocals, a couple of rare Unruly Child lost tracks like the obscure "Words Get Lost Again", and some recordings for the songwriting team Paress - Cuomo.
"Hypnotized" is a very, very early '80s demo (that I should have included in Vol. 6), and tracks 10 to 13 are pretty rare, to my knowledge, never seen into other compilations of this great artist.

Vol.9 it's the only one on my own; song selection, tape cleaning, editing & artwork.
Again, thanks to Plattenpapst & Giles (just readers and music lovers like you) for their inestimable contribution on previous volumes.
It has been a pleasure to work on these tapes to get the best audio quality possible, and share them with all of you.





MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.9

MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.8 'Studio Session B'

More M. Free sessions.
Comprising great AOR tracks like "Waiting For You", "State Of Mind", "Two Hearts", poppy tunes ("Union Of The Soul", "World Of Wonder", "So Close, Yet So Far"), beautiful ballads as "You Make Me Feel Brand New", "Wishing You Could Be With Me", several 'Signal era' songs and some pretty old and good material ("Superhero", "Angel In Chains")
Most of them with really good sound quality.

Thanks again to Giles Lavery for some song contribution.
Tape cleaning, enhancing, editing & artwork by me.
Last volume, # 9; 'The Extra Mile', including rarely seen demos, coming up very soon...





MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.8

MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.7 'Studio Session A'

Another M. Free 'extra' volume.
This one easily could be the best of all, not only for the quality of the songs but also the excellent sound.
I've enhanced and cleaned these tapes with patience and love, and let me tell you, most of them sound like pre-production demos or finished pro / ready-to-be-released material.

Besides, these songs are amongst the most difficult to find between the extensive Free's session recordings.
Added a new version of "Secrets", with much better quality than the one included in Vol.1.
Thanks again Mr. Giles Lavery for your contribution.
Tape cleaning, enhancing, editing & artwork by me.
Vol 8, 'Studio Session B', coming soon...






MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.7

MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.6 'The Early Years'

I was finishing my own Mark / Marcie Free compilation (apart from the Plattenpapst series) when another reader of the blog contacted me.
He wants to share with us all his private collection of hard to find M. Free stuff.
Giles Lavery (that's his name) from Australia, gently sent me a great bunch of rare tracks only available long time ago on Free's website; her personal 'Vault'.

Half of the tracks in this new volume come from Giles, including very early Marcie recordings, and some of the awesome jingle ads she did in the '80s. All with quite good sound.
I've cleaned, edited and de-noised when needed to get the best audio quality possible.
Myself made artwork following the 'Plattenpapst standards' to make these series homogeneous.
Don't miss this, it's a great one. Thanks Giles!
At least 3 volumes (with more rarities) in the making... coming soon.





MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.6

MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.5 'For Fans Only'

Final installment of Mark Free by Plattenpapst.
This one is basically the "12 lb Sledge" demos.
According to Plattenpapst:
" In 1993 Unruly Child, after losing their record deal with their label, had reformed under the moniker "Twelve Pound Sledge" and were writing new material in hopes of resigning with another U.S. label.
That never happened, and those songs from that writing session were released in 1996 as a solo album on independent labels in Germany and Japan, entitled Marcie Free "Tormented".
These are the original demos. "

Also included are some of the '80s recordings by Mark to songwriters Mark Baker, Barlow/Minto and as part of the 'Denver Project' ("Turn Your Head Around" was for the band Arrival)
Artwork, tracklist and song selection by Plattenpapst.
Cleaning, edition and de-noising by me.





MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.5

MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.4 'The Pop Collection'

This 4th volume compiles the Pop oriented tracks by Mark the sessionist.
Actually, you can smell some AORish scent on many tracks, like opener "Dancing On The Edge" or "I've Heard Everything Now"
But "Arms Of Love", "Arms Of Love" or "Everywhere I Turn" to name a few, are truly poppy.

I've added 6 extra songs to the compilation originally made by Plattenpapst, to offer a more meaty volume, including the awesome AOR tune "Cry Of Passion" requested on the chat box.
1 hour of pretty rare Mark Free recordings.
Artwork, tracklist and song selection by Plattenpapst & me.
Vol.5 : 'For Fans..', coming soon...






MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.4

MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.3 'The Ballads Collection'

Vol.3 featuring a beautiful selection of Ballads, like the awesome midtempo "One Heartbeat" written by the mighty duo Judithe and Robin Randall, later recorded by VENUS & MARS for their 2nd album 'New Moon Rising' (already posted in this blog).
"The Night Has A Way" was penned by David Tyson and Christopher Ward, producers and songwriters for Alannah Miles. One of Mark Free favorites on his own words. This great tune was recorded later by NIGHT RANGER and GARY MOON for his solo album (posted here as well).
"If You Give Your Heart" is one of my personal favs, almost a lullaby song.
On "I Wish Was There With You", Mark sounds like John Waite, while "Hopelessly Lost" is a monster AOR tune.

Many of the tracks had a very low signal and lots of tape hiss noise, I've tried to enhance Mark's vocals to the maximum.
Artwork, tracklist and song selection by Plattenpapst.
Vol.4 : 'The Pop Collection', coming soon...





MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.3

MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.2 "The Arkenstone demo + Live"

This 2nd volume includes the never released recordings with New Age musician David Arkenstone plus some live tracks.
By this time, Arkenstone was experimenting with new tech tools to make music.
For this material, Pomp AOR oriented and fantasy themed, David hired the then unknown jingle-session man Mark Free to do the vocalizations. To my knowledge, these are Free's first professional recordings.

Particularly interesting are the bootleg live tracks with King Kobra, to clearly appreciate how powerfully Mark Free used to perform onstage. Just check the second half of 'Piece Of The Rock'.
I've done a pretty good job 'remastering' these tapes considering the source quality. I am very satisfied with the result.
Artwork, tracklist and song selection by Plattenpapst.
Vol.3 : 'The Ballads Collection', coming soon...





MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.2

MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.1 'The AOR Collection'

Needless to describe MARK / MARCIE FREE pedigree.
An AOR icon, ex - King Kobra, Signal and now with the revamped Unruly Child.
During his / her career has spent a lot of time singing demos for various songwriters and artists in the music industry.

An active reader and contributor to this site, Mr. Plattenpapst from Germany, had the idea to compile the most significant Free's recordings into various volumes to share them with you all.
There will be 5 Volumes separated by genre, spanning all '80s / '90s works by Mark Free as session vocalist.
Only unreleased material, not the officially released (like 'Unruly Child - Basement Demos', for example)

Vol.1 is about the AOR recordings.
Most of these tracks were recorded at the time between Mark left King Kobra and formed Signal: '87/ '88 / '89.
Free was working as a driver for a courier service in L.A. and in the meantime he met songwriters Judithe and Robin Randall.
Once they hired Mark to sing their demos, they started telling all their other writer friends in California about his vocal duties and the phone started ringing.
"I needed the money really bad so I started singing demos for people. It really helped me to develop further my ability to sing in the studio and I was being paid for it." says Mark.

All the songs in this volume demonstrates the diversity, ductility and amplitude of Mark Free as performer.
You can hear also on some tracks Robin Randall's (and even Diana DeWitt) backing vocals.
"Your Wild Ways" was the first song Mark Free ever sang for the canadian songwriting team David Tyson / Christopher Ward.

Plattenpapst did the artwork, tracklist and song selection.
I just cleaned, edited and de-noised the tracks.
Hope you enjoy this 'joint-venture'.
Vol.2 : 'The Arkenstone demos', coming soon...






MARK FREE - Hidden Treasures Vol.1