Born in Big Sandy Texas, DL Free grew up traveling the world. This introduced him to World Music long before most Americans of the 60’s and 70’s were aware of World Music. At home his father played jazz and blues music from the 50’s and 60’s. From BB King to Sarah Vaughn were Saturday and Sunday music in the house. Of course, James Brown, The Beatles and The Supremes and many others were often heard in his home. Although already a Beatles fan, Free considers his first Rock album to be Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies.
He began learning guitar at age eight. His parents gave him an acoustic Silvertone guitar when he was eight years old and had a Pakistani cover band guitarist give DL Free guitar lessons and teach him Top 40 songs like I’m a Believer by the Monkees. At age fifteen his father bought him a Fender Telecaster. He has never been without a guitar since.
In 1978, Free moved to California’s East Bay area and after being introduced to Bob Marley, reggae became a major influence. In Santa Cruz, CA, Free jammed with musicians from a variety of Caribbean and Central American cultures. He formed a club band he named Evil Dog (backwards it spells God Live). Free wrote half the songs and lead guitarist Perry Leslie, wrote the other half. (The song Children’s Children is one of the songs that Free included on the future release On Half Mast with lyrics written by Perry Leslie.)
In the mid eighties, after moving to Houston, TX, he played or sat in with numerous reggae bands. He played lead and rhythm guitar in Ras Binghi with gigs in Houston, Dallas and Austin. He also spent time at Jus Fresh Studio with engineer Clay James recording originals.
In the late 80’s, Free lived in the Metro DC area and was exposed to Go-Go music with Chuck Brown, and Trouble Funk being major influences. It took awhile for Free to appreciate Go Go and Hip Hop. The messages in the lyrics were vastly different than Reggae but recordings he made at Grace & style Studios with producer John Gordan show its influence.
Free also wrote, recorded and released the Reggae single Drug Free Zone at BeBop Studios with engineers Bob DeWald and Marco Delmar in Rockville MD. Drug Free Zone became the theme song of one Philadelphia radio program in 1990. It was through BeBop that he teamed up briefly with a young woman named Uru who Free had sing lead and background on other songs he wrote and produced.
Upon returning to California, Free turned his focus on songwriting. He formed an enduring relationship and collaboration with Tom Calzini. This was a few years before Calzini released Spivy’s Roof, in which some lyrical content was Free influenced.
Next for Free was Albuquerque, NM. There he built a home recording studio. Writing and recording during the US-Iraq war years, he wrote the title song On Half Mast. When President Bush announced in 2006 that there would be a military ‘surge’ in the war, Free felt pressured to release the On Half Mast compilation (which includes the song Children’s Children) in February 2007. Songs made the playlist briefly on College Radio, but it was in Europe, particularly Russia and through a France based online streaming Blues station, that songs from the CD gained attention with tracks Faithful, On Half Mast and Cross the Border.
Continuing to write and record, Free completed production of songs for a second release with the working title, Aurora.
Aurora was heard by author/artist Sri B Rey, who praised it.
“you (DL Free) play real soul music.... good for the head... i mean, man, those guitar overlays are just f***ing awesome -- and i am very critical too but you got me . . . I think it's a masterpiece of musical genius.