Larry Saunders & Others - Free Angela (1973)

Angela Davis is a radical black activist, author, communist and academic.

She emerged as a nationally prominent counterculture activist and radical in the 1960s, as a leader of the Communist Party USA, and had close relations with the Black Panther Party through her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement despite never being an official member of the party.

She studied as a doctoral candidate at the University of California, San Diego, under the Marxist professor and 'One Dimensional Man' (1964) author Herbert Marcuse.
Davis joined the Communist Party in 1968, and like many Blacks during the late 1960s, suffered discrimination for her personal political beliefs and commitment to revolutionary ideals. Despite her qualifications and excellent teaching record, the California Board of Regents refused to renew her appointment as a philosophy lecturer in 1970.

Davis worked to free the Soledad (Prison) Brothers, African-American prisoners held in California during the late 1960s. She befriended George Jackson, one of the prisoners. On August 7, 1970, during an abortive escape attempt from Marin County's Hall of Justice, the trial judge and three people were killed, including George Jackson's brother Jonathan. Davis was implicated when police claimed that the guns used had been registered in her name.
Davis fled and was consequently listed on the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted list, sparking one of the most intensive manhunts in recent American history. California Governor Ronald Reagan publicly vowed that Davis would never teach in that state again. In August 1970 she was captured & imprisoned in New York City but was freed eighteen months later, cleared of all charges in 1972 by an all white jury. Her co-defendant and sole-survivor of the Marin Courthouse Rebellion, Ruchell Magee, still remains in prison.

Prisoner rights have been among her continuing interests; she is the founder of Critical Resistance, an organization working to abolish the prison-industrial complex. She is a retired professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is the former director of the university's Feminist Studies department.

Her research interests are in feminism, African-American studies, critical theory, Marxism, popular music, social consciousness, and the philosophy and history of punishment and prisons.

"Free Angela" is an incredibly righteous bit of soul – one of the few albums ever cut by 70s mellow soul genius Larry Saunders, and an amazing tribute to Angela Davis! Larry's got a fantastic voice – one that we'd rank right up there with Donny Hathaway or Marvin Gaye, and which is recorded here with sublimely spare arrangements that have a slight southern soul touch, but which are more in the east coast indie mode in which he often worked. There's other artists in the mix, too – a few others brought together by August Moon/Mr Wiggles for the project – singing and playing some amazing work that makes the whole thing a lost righteous soul treasure. The whole album's amazing – almost like finding a part 2 to What's Going On, or listening into what Otis Redding might have sounded like, had he made it to the 70s. Titles include Saunders singing "Free Angela", "This World", and "Where Did Peace Go" – and other cuts include "Nobody Knows" by Dickie Wonder, "I Can Be" by Brother Love, "Old Uncle Tom Is Dead" by Nitroglycerine, "Baby Can't You See" by Tyrone Thomas, and "Geraldine Jones" by Soul Encyclopedia.

Tracklist:

A1	Larry Saunders, The Prophet Of Soul* –	Free Angela
A2	Larry Saunders, The Prophet Of Soul* –	This World
A3	Nitroglycerine–	Old Uncle Tom Is Dead
A4	Larry Saunders, The Prophet Of Soul* –	Where Did Peace Go?
B1	Dickie Wonder–	Nobody Knows
B2	Brother Love	I Can Be
B3	Tyrone Thomas–	Baby Can't You See
B4	Judd Watkins–	Paradise
B5	Soul Encyclopedia–	Geraldine Jones

Larry Saunders & Others - Free Angela
(320 kbps, cover art included)