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A Song for Me

1970 studio album by Family

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ1947399 ↗
Source-derived summary

A Song for Me is the third album by the British progressive rock band Family, released on 23 January 1970 on Reprise Records.

Background

The album was recorded in late 1969 at Olympic Studios in London. It was their first album with new members John Weider on bass and Poli Palmer on keyboards, flute and vibraphone. The past several months had been full of setbacks for Family. Rick Grech left for Blind Faith, Jim King was forced to leave for getting too deep into drug addiction, and their first U.S. tour proved to be a disaster.

Although many of the songs had been written with King's saxophone in mind, Charlie Whitney and Roger Chapman were able to rework them with Palmer's instruments, and Palmer quickly made himself integral to Family's sound. Because some of these songs had been debuted in live performances in the previous year, many Family fans found themselves getting accommodated to arrangements that sounded radically different from what they expected.

Much of A Song for Me shows Family exploring various popular forms, from jazz and blues to folk and country.

Track listing

All tracks written by John "Charlie" Whitney and Roger Chapman, except where noted.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “A Song for Me” as 1970 studio album by Family. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Song, studio and album.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1970, 1969—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1970-01-23. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Song, studio and album providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “A Song for Me”, the useful work is to connect “1970 studio album by Family” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1947399. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1970 and 1969.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “A Song for Me”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow A Song for Me primary sources, A Song for Me archive and Song research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “A Song for Me”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “A Song for Me” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.