Free

Free belong to that pool of classic British rock bands who, despite having marked and defined an era, have over time been almost forgotten by the specialist rock press and, as a result, somewhat downgraded in the eyes of fans too. Other historic names now relegated to that same corner might include Traffic, Ten Years After and Faces.

This is a retrospective distortion that does no credit whatsoever to the historiographical rigor of music critics. The reasons aren't particularly hard to pinpoint: among the bands that, over the last twenty-odd years, have set the standard for music journalism — in guitar-driven territory almost exclusively oriented toward alternative rock — it's hard to find even one that has looked to Free as a point of reference. There have been other spheres that have, over time, remembered their existence, but as we'll see further on, none of these falls within the scope of interest of post-2000 music journalism: the sidelining of Free, in other words, says more about rock criticism than it does about Free themselves, whose importance remains hard to dispute.

Guitarist Paul Kossoff and drummer Simon Kirke first met in the mid-Sixties, playing together in the r&b outfit Black Cat Bones. Determined to lead a project of their own, they teamed up with singer Paul Rodgers after catching one of his shows with Brown Sugar, a minor band that left behind no recorded trace. The lineup was rounded out by bass prodigy Andy Fraser, just fifteen at the time, who had briefly passed through John Mayall's Bluesbreakers: so, despite his age, he was actually the member with the most prestigious credentials.

The deal with Island came about through the mediation of Alexis Korner, a cult blues musician and talent scout for the local scene comparable only to John Mayall himself. Although the band built up a solid live reputation, their first two albums – "Tons Of Sobs" (March 1969) and "Free" (October 1969) – sold below expectations, both failing to crack the British charts.

When they went into the studio for their third attempt, the quartet was determined to change things up: for a start, they'd been given control of production themselves, whereas the first two albums had been produced by Guy Stevens (who a decade later would be at the helm of the Clash's "London Calling") and Chris Blackwell (Island's president), respectively.

They had also decided to aim for a wider audience than the narrow circle of blues purists: the decision came in the wake of an unfortunate gig in Durham, a small town in the north of England, where the band played to a few dozen people who seemed utterly indifferent to their music.

That very same night, Fraser – who had already established himself as the band's chief creative force – wrote "All Right Now", chorus and all. Rodgers put together the rest of the lyrics over the following days. The band members had no doubts: this was the song that would send their career soaring.

Island released it as a single in May 1970, right as the group was wrapping up sessions for the accompanying album. On 6 June the song entered the singles chart at number 36 – enough to land them a slot on Top Of The Pops. As was common practice, the band was asked to re-record the instrumental part from scratch, in a version exclusive to the show. The three musicians mimed along to the new backing track, while Rodgers was allowed to sing live. The result was a slightly stiff rendition that failed to capture the song's full power, but it was enough to win over radio support and get teenagers buying the record.

Within a month, "All Right Now" was sitting at number 2.

On 26 June the album followed, titled "Fire And Water": it had been recorded during the first half of the year at London's famed Trident Studios, with John Kelly on board as co-producer (it's hard to gauge exactly how much he contributed to the sessions, especially given that some reissues of the album leave him uncredited) and Roy Thomas Baker as sound engineer (he would go on to produce Queen, Journey, Cars and many others).

Within a couple of weeks the record likewise shot up to number 2 (only the era-defining bestseller of the early Seventies, Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water", kept it from reaching the top). Free had suddenly become one of Britain's biggest bands.

August brought definitive confirmation: not only did they play the third Isle of Wight Festival, which that year drew 600,000 people, but their records also crossed over into the United States. The "All Right Now" single climbed the Billboard chart all the way to number 4, while the album reached number 17. It was at that point that many American musicians, working in scenes far removed from one another, began paying close attention to the band and its innovative blend of sounds.

The album opens with the title track, a blues-rock midtempo driven by a short riff played in unison by guitar and bass, which in the chorus is pared down to a sequence of intermittent chords. It's a lean, seemingly no-frills style, yet one that still finds room to showcase the musicians' skill, as in the instrumental break, where Kossoff's guitar splits into multiple layers – on one side, sharp rhythmic stabs reminiscent of Pete Townshend, and on the other, long sustained notes standing in for a solo.

Fraser adds fleeting piano trills in the background to thicken the texture (it was he who decided on the occasional embellishments to the monolithic guitar-bass-drums foundation: acoustic guitar arpeggios, the odd piano chord, or even just the rhythm of a tambourine). Rodgers' voice, both raspy and powerful, reveals a clear soul streak. A drum solo from Kirke closes the track, as guitar drones fade away in the background.

"Oh I Wept" is the only song on the record credited to Kossoff rather than Fraser as writer. In the verses it's a full-blown ballad, while in the chorus the rhythm section pushes harder, even as Rodgers' vocal stays fairly restrained. It's curious how Kossoff held back on the very track he wrote: the guitar keeps to delicate tones throughout, even during the bends of the solo.

"Remember", another midtempo, has the most straightforwardly bluesy feel on the record. Once again, Kossoff's multitracked solos and Fraser's finishing touches (percussion, piano chords, handclaps) stand out.

"Heavy Load" is a ballad carried entirely by Fraser's piano, built on a simple, hypnotic pattern that doubles as the bassline while also supplying melodic ideas drawn from both classical music and jazz.

"Mr. Big" is perhaps the band's creative peak. It opens with a rhythmic pattern from Kirke destined to become a landmark, later sampled across the most disparate genres: a slow but mighty 4/4 with hi-hat on the downbeat. The guitar plays a dry, clipped rhythm that leaves gaps of silence duly filled by the bass glissandos. The song's central body is made up of two instrumental digressions: the first is led by Kossoff, with a solo built on left-hand vibrato so precise it sounds like it was played with a tremolo arm — which his Les Paul, however, didn't have; the second is dominated by Fraser, whose bass enters with an ascending sequence that soon develops into a solo dense with chromaticism, syncopated moments and Mixolydian phrasing (for further reading, see the article written by Tim Fletcher for No Treble: "Andy Fraser's Bass Line on 'Mr. Big' by Free"). Interestingly, at this point the roles are reversed, with Fraser cutting loose the melodic lines while Kossoff layers rhythmic textures underneath, weaving arpeggios, staccato chords and drones.

"Don't Say You Love Me" is a very slow hybrid of rock and soul, built on a steady crescendo of intensity: it begins with Rodgers' voice clear and calm, and ends with passionate surges in which his lines grow raspier.

Closing the tracklist is the already-mentioned "All Right Now", the band's anthem and one of the most emblematic songs in British rock, with cutting guitars whose rhythmic drive again recalls Townshend, and a funky drum part with Kirke making relentless use of the cowbell. Fraser, despite having written the song, stays silent for the entire verse: the bass only enters in the chorus, though in the middle section he reserves for himself a riff that becomes the backbone of the instrumental break (naturally, the piano chords that appear at that point are also played by Fraser). It's the vocal line, however, that steals the show, with Rodgers deploying his full arsenal — falsettos, on-the-fly timbral shifts, small inflections and impromptu vocalizations tucked into the background, barely audible in the final mix but enriching the song's flow nonetheless.

It's undoubtedly the album's most typically hard-rock moment, so much so that anyone approaching the record knowing only this track risks being thrown off by a tracklist that, although shot through with rather hard-edged guitar tones, reveals unsuspected shades and intimate moments.

The lyrics haven't been examined in detail, because Rodgers' verses, however well-contextualized and made credible by his intense delivery, are on average very simple and dwell on typical blues themes: relationships with women ("All Right Now", "Don't Say You Love Me"), laments about the hardships of life ("Heavy Load") and warnings about the negative consequences of chasing success ("Mr. Big").

Wilson Pickett, the Detroit soul singer, took notice of these songs almost immediately, scoring the following year the last hit of his long career with a cover of "Fire And Water": Rodgers would later admit he felt flattered by the tribute from a legendary figure like Pickett.

In the rock world, Ronnie Van Zandt of Lynyrd Skynyrd, who would make their debut three years later, would state that he built his own vocal style by taking Rodgers as a model (Free's influence on part of American southern rock is, after all, evident, and would be confirmed by Gov't Mule's cover of "Mr. Big" in 1995).

Even one of the biggest hits of Seventies American radio rock, "Rock 'n Me" by the Steve Miller Band, has a riff that was openly modeled on "All Right Now", with just a few small variations.

Moving toward hard rock, the Californian band Mr. Big even took their name from the Free song, not to mention the rather faithful cover they recorded in 1993.

The validity and versatility of their music is even more evident, though, in the ways it has been reclaimed in fields less directly connected to its original character: rap and electronic music, for instance. In 2003, Dj Muggs of Cypress Hill sampled the piano from "Heavy Load" on "I Know"; in 1999 Blackalicious sampled the bass from "Mr. Big" on "Trouble (Eve Of Destruction)"; while the samples and interpolations of the drum groove from that same track are countless. Among the most notable: "Dawning" (2003) by 23 Skidoo with Pharoah Sanders, in the nu jazz field, and the pair of reworkings carried out by drum and bass guru Luke Vibert, first in 1998 with "A Hot One" (under the name Plug) and then in 2003 with "Acidisco".

Unfortunately, none of the names or musical scenes listed so far number among the favorites of music criticism over the past couple of decades, and this has created the mistaken impression that the ground sown by Free never bore any fruit. Not even the admiring words of Rod Stewart, who covered them back in his Faces days and again later as a solo artist, or those of Queen, who wanted Rodgers as their singer for their 2004 live reunion, could change that.

Free would break up in 1973. Rodgers and Kirke would go on to found Bad Company, with great commercial success (though today even they are less remembered than one might think). Kossoff would die of pulmonary edema in 1976, at just twenty-five (his health had been compromised by years of struggles with hard drugs).

Fraser, the creative engine behind the band's finest records, died instead in 2015, from complications related to arteriosclerosis: after Free's split, he lived on the margins of the music industry, mainly as a songwriter for other singers (he wrote "Every Kinda People", released in 1978 by Robert Palmer). He became known as a gay rights activist starting in 2005.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

09/07/2023