We previously featured Boz in a post about him and his band’s resurgence (click here). Well Boz and friends have released their final album “Ute Creek Eulogy”.
Front Cover
Back Cover
Congratulations to Boz and his band personnel and guest musicians!
Here is the press release –
July 1, 2023
FREELAND RELEASES THIRD AND FINAL ALBUM, UTE CREEK EULOGY, 51 YEARS AFTER FIRST RECORD
Freeland, a six-piece band from Minnesota, announces the release of Ute Creek Eulogy, featuring 17 songs and two bonus tracks, all written by members of this long-lasting group of musical friends, some of whom played in local groups together in the 1960s. The title refers to Ute Creek, a canyon near Idaho Springs, CO, where the band moved in August, 1972, to promote their first record, Headin’ Back. The group played a good number of shows that summer featuring their original music but eventually moved back to their homeland to pursue other musical, educational and career objectives.
Four of the members reunited in the summer of 1975 in a new version of Freeland, focused on Colorado (again) club gigs and cover songs peppered with danceable tunes of their own making. When autumn came, the four took another hiatus for life’s various quests.
By 2005 they were reunited again for a concert at Macalester College in St. Paul to memorialize a fellow musician from back in the day. The good feelings and camaraderie of that performance led to Freeland’s second album, Almost Home, released in 2008. Then, once again, the members went their separate ways for more than a decade.
As the Covid pandemic settled upon the land in 2020, the group started planning for the current collection of songs, but recording logistics were tricky given where the members lived: San Juan Island, WA; Pocatello, ID; Park City, UT; St. Paul; Deer Park, WI; and Nashville. Thanks to jet airliners, home studios, a mobile recording setup in a big van, and the keyboard player’s pro studio in Nashville, work started by mid-2021, with a release date of August 2022 to mark the 50-year anniversary of Headin’ Back.
Life and health being what they are, things fell off schedule, just a little. But today, Freeland is delighted to present Ute Creek Eulogy, dedicated to the memory of Doug Rymerson, who died on the day mixing commenced in November, 2022.
Band personnel
Boz Metzdorf – guitar, harmonica and vocals
Tommy Wiggins – keyboards, guitar, drums and vocals
Steve Keys – guitar, bass and vocals
Jeff Schroeder – guitar and vocals
Doug Rymerson – guitar and vocals
Dave Cushing – drums, bass, guitar and vocals
Guest musicians
Denny Hemmingson – slide guitar, dobro
Ron Rotter – drums
Dan Perry – harmony
Track listing
- Chasing Down the Sun (Wiggins)
- Picks And Axes (Metzdorf)
- Ute Creek Eulogy (Keys)
- Earth Medicine (Schroeder)
- Music’s for Dancing (Wiggins)
- To Be Free (Metzdorf)
- Buffalo Gulch (Cushing)
- Morning Sunlight (Rymerson)
- On Your Watch (Metzdorf)
- Storm Bound (Wiggins)
- River Dream (Schroeder)
- Silver Moon (Metzdorf)
- Doing Alright (Keys)
- Makin’ Our Way (Wiggins)
- Nothing But Love (Metzdorf)
- Memories are Songs (Wiggins)
- The Song Lives On (Metzdorf)
Bonus tracks – recorded in the 1970s!
- Kalah (Wiggins)
- Ride With The Devil (Metzdorf)
Ute Creek Eulogy is available from Chili Dog Records, Nashville
and soon at birdseyeviewproductions.net
Streamable on bandcamp (more platforms soon)