Dear Friends | |
Type: | Compilation |
Artist: | The Firesign Theatre |
Cover: | FST Dear Friends album cover.jpg |
Released: | January 1972 |
Recorded: | September 1970 – February 1971 |
Genre: | Comedy |
Length: | 74:07 |
Label: | Columbia |
Producer: | The Firesign Theatre |
Prev Title: | I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus |
Prev Year: | 1971 |
Next Title: | Not Insane or Anything You Want To |
Next Year: | 1972 |
Dear Friends is the Firesign Theatre's fifth album to be released on Columbia Records. It is a compilation album, collecting the Firesigns' choice of the best comedy sketches from their nationally syndicated radio program produced from September 1970 to February 1971.
All tracks by The Firesign Theatre
The dates following the track listing for the tracks on this album indicate the date of the live show at which this track was recorded.
Between September 9, 1970 and February 17, 1971 The Firesign Theatre performed Dear Friends, a one-hour live show on radio station KPFK in Los Angeles. These shows were recorded by the group, and then edited into slightly shorter shows which they syndicated to radio stations across the country on 12 inch white label LPs.
The group later collected what they considered to be the best segments from the radio program and compiled a double album. The tracks on each side were selected thematically, and each side was given its own sub-title.
It is one of the few Firesign albums to mention that individual members wrote some of the pieces (Phil Austin wrote "The T.B. Guide," Philip Proctor wrote "The Chinchilla Show" and "Dr. Whiplash," David Ossman wrote "Mark Time!" and Peter Bergman wrote "$100 Ben" and several commercial parodies he performed individually). However, the label composer credit for all pieces is to the Firesign Theatre.
This album was originally released simultaneously on LP, cassette, 8-track, and reel-to-reel.
It has been reissued on CD at least twice
The group's 2010 Duke of Madness Motors: The Complete "Dear Friends" Radio Era set is a combination book and data DVD comprising a complete compilation, totaling over 80 hours, of their 1970s radio shows Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour, Dear Friends, and Let's Eat (the last two in both original broadcast, and syndication-edited form).[1]
Another album distilled from the Duke of Madness Motors set, Dope Humor of the Seventies, which also collected material from the Dear Friends radio shows, was released in 2020.[2] [3]