Overview
The original idea to create the album was that of Thomas, who wanted to teach her then-young niece Dionne about life, in particular that it is acceptable to refute or reject the blatant gender stereotypes in children's books of that time. The album was produced by Carole Hart, with music produced by Stephen J. Lawrence and Bruce Hart, with stories and poems directed by Alan Alda. Proceeds went to the Ms. Foundation for Women. The album has been published by Arista Records since 1983 (it was first published by Bell Records) and is still in print today. As of 2006 it sold more than 500,000 copies (a well-received sequel, Free to Be... A Family, was produced in 1988).
Well-known songs include "It's All Right to Cry," sung by football hero Rosey Grier; the title track by the New Seekers; "Helping," a Shel Silverstein poem performed by Tom Smothers; "Sisters and Brothers" by the Voices of East Harlem; and "When We Grow Up" performed by Diana Ross on the album and by Roberta Flack and a teenage Michael Jackson on the special.
Other sketches, some of them animated in the television special, include "Atalanta," co-narrated by Thomas and Alda, a retelling of the ancient Greek legend of Atalanta; "Boy Meets Girl" with Thomas and Mel Brooks providing the voices for puppets, designed, performed and manipulated by Wayland Flowers, resembling human babies, who use cultural gender stereotypes to try to discover which is a boy and which a girl; "William's Doll", based on Charlotte Zolotow's story about a boy who wants a doll, to the dismay of his father; and "Dudley Pippin" with Robert Morse and Billy De Wolfe, based on stories by Phil Ressner.
The children pictured on the original LP jacket were schoolmates of Abigail, Robin, and David Pogrebin, children of Letty Cottin Pogrebin, then editor of Ms.. Most of the children attended Corlears School.
Thomas "and friends" followed Free to Be... You and Me with a 1987 sequel, Free to Be a Family, the first primetime variety show created and produced in both the United States and the Soviet Union.
Read more about this topic: Free To Be... You And Me