Artist: Free
Genre(s):
Rock: Blues
Discography:
Heartbreaker
Year: 1973
Tracks: 9
Free At Last
Year: 1972
Tracks: 9
Famed for their perennial "All Right Now," Free helped lay the foundations for the uprise of hard stone, uncovering the earthy heavy of British blue devils down to its raw, minimalist core to open up a brand of proto-metal afterward popularized by 1970's superstars wish Foreigner, Foghat and Bad Company. Free formed in London in 1968 when guitar player Paul Kossoff, then a extremity of the blues unit Black Cat Bones, was taken to see vocaliser Paul Rodgers' chemical group Brown Sugar by a quaker, drummer Tom Mautner. After deciding to form their have band, Kossoff and Rodgers recruited drummer Simon Kirke (since Mautner was at university) and 16-year-old bass phenom Andy Fraser from the ranks of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers; with the assist of Alexis Korner, wHO also suggested the name Free, the fledgeling band sign-language to the Island label, issue their bluesy debut Lashings of Sobs in 1968.
Free's eponymic 1969 follow-up expanded on their roots-based good, incorporating bikers like Albert King's "The Hunter" as well as muscular ballads like "Fabrication in the Sunshine" into the mix. Although both of the first two albums fared ailing on the charts, 1970's Fire and Water became a grand hit on the strength of the primordial "All Right Now," a Top Five smash powered by Rodgers' mettlesome, visceral vocals. After headlining 1970's Isle of Wight fete, the group appeared destined for superstardom, but the LP Main road did not transportation nearly as well as awaited, and subsequently a backbreaking tour which yielded 1971's Justify Live, the band dissolved amidst ego clashes and recriminations.
While Rodgers went on to form Peace and Fraser founded Toby, Kossoff and Kirke teamed with bassist Tetsu Yamauchi and keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick to record the album Kossoff, Kirke, Tetsu and Rabbit. When none of these modern projects proven successful, the original lineup of Free re-formed to record 1972's Liberate at Last, which launched the strike "Little Bit of Love." However, do drugs problems nagged the group, as Kossoff's longtime struggle with diacetylmorphine continued to decline; before long Fraser exited to form Sharks with Chris Spedding, going Rodgers and Kirke to record the majority of 1973's Heartbreaker while a drug-addled Kossoff watched from the sidelines. Soon, the chemical group disbanded again, this time for estimable: patch Rodgers and Kirke went on to found Bad Company, Kossoff formed Back Street Crawler before dying of a drug-induced pump plan of attack on March 19, 1976.
