Dennis Robertson

Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music.
Well, the turn corresponds to South Africa. About 10 years ago, a great friend collector made ​​me listen to this LP from 'Freedoms Children'.

This band reflects a tiny but fascinating and oft-forgotten scene of South African progressive rock, regularly omitted from prog annals and denied their part in music history. But in their time, FREEDOM'S CHILDREN were no less innovative than ATOMIC ROOSTER, EGG or COLOSSEUM and their 1970 release "Astra" was an extremely important if completely missed record. Luckily it was re-issued in 1990 and again several times…

On January 12, 1970, 'Time' magazine placed The Band on its cover with the headline, 'The New Sound of Country Rock.' In the taxonomy of popular music, Country Rock was now a thing, a categoryby 1970. There were Country Rock browser bins in some stores, and trade magazines like 'Billboard'routinely classified records as country-rock or country/rock, expecting readers to know what they meant.

Martin Page, who hails from Southampton, England, first gained recognition as a songwriter in the early 80’s with Top-40 hits for Kim Carnes and Earth, Wind & Fire, among others. With Bernie Taupin, whose usual partner was Elton John (and with Dennis Lambert & Peter Wolf), Page wrote “We Built This City,” a Number One Hit for Starship (their first) in 1985. Page and Taupin returned to Number One the following year with “These Dreams,” recorded by Heart (also Heart’s first chart topper). Teaming up with Peter Cox and Richard Drummie of the UK group Go West, Page wrote “King Of Wishful Thinking,” which was featured in the movie “Pretty Woman,” and became a Top Ten hit for Go West in 1990, and “Faithful,” another hit for Go West. With Robbie Robertson, Page penned the critically acclaimed “Fallen Angel,” featured in Robertson’s first solo album.