I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free

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This article is about the song by Billy Taylor. For the album, see I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (album).
Not to be confused with I Wish I Knew, jazz standard by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren.
"I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free"
Single by Nina Simone
from the album Silk & Soul
Released1967
GenreGospel, Jazz
Length3:06
LabelRCA Records
Songwriter(s)Billy Taylor, Richard Carroll Lamb (Dick Dallas)

"I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free" is a jazz song written by Billy Taylor and Dick Dallas. Taylor's original version (as "I Wish I Knew") was recorded on November 12, 1963, and released on his Right Here, Right Now! album (Capitol ST-2039) the following year. His 1967 live version, from the album of the same name, was later used as the theme music for the Film... review programme series on BBC Television.[1]

Taylor said: "I wrote this song, perhaps my best-known composition, for my daughter Kim. This is one of the best renditions I’ve done because it is very spiritual."[2]

Cover versions[]

The song served as an anthem for the Civil Rights Movement in America in the 1960s.[3] A widely played version was recorded by Nina Simone in 1967 on her Silk & Soul album.

Lighthouse Family covered it as (I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be) Free/One.

Other artists who have covered the song include Don Shirley (1968), Junior Mance (1968), Illinois Jacquet (1968), Solomon Burke (1968), Marlena Shaw (1969), Cold Blood (1969), John Denver (1969), Doris (1970), Mary Travers (1971), John Fahey (1976), Jools Holland (1997), Levon Helm (2009), John Legend and The Roots (2010), The Derek Trucks Band (2006), and Emeli Sandé (2012). The song was also covered by Andra Day for the 2018 film Acrimony.

An arrangement of the song for soprano, chorus, and orchestra by Margaret Bonds was performed by Leontyne Price with the Rust College Choir (1971).[4]

The Blind Boys of Alabama featuring Béla Fleck are releasing a version for Record Store Day 2021. It is the A-side of a two-song single. The B-side is a previously unreleased Bob Dylan song "See by Faith" from their album Almost Home.[5]

References[]

  1. ^ Gunn, Alison (November 28, 2016). "The Life of a Song: 'I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free'". Financial Times. London. Retrieved June 9, 2021.
  2. ^ "Billy Taylor Discography". Archived from the original on 5 December 2007. Retrieved 9 February 2018.
  3. ^ Anderson, Sheila E. (2005). How to Grow as a Musician: What All Musicians Must Know to Succeed. Allworth Communications, Inc. p. 67. ISBN 1-58115-416-X.
  4. ^ Leontyne Price, Rust College Choir – I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free (1971, Vinyl), retrieved 2021-02-19
  5. ^ "Blind Boys of Alabama and Bela Fleck team up for Record Store Day 2021". Single Lock Records. Retrieved April 28, 2021.

External links[]

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