Before the excellent blue-eyed soul vocalist Paul Rodgers came to Top 40 omnipresence with 1970’s Crap Rock powerhouse Bad Company he was the frontman for English blues rockers Free. With a harder, less polished sound than Rodgers’ later endeavor and avoiding the easily parodied obsessions with American Western imagery, Free cranked out some of the best and most righteous hard rock of the early 70s. With the twin forces of one of the best vocalists in Rock history ably abetted by the superlative guitarist Paul Kossoff, Free reached their commercial zenith in 1970 with the smash hit that became an evergreen of Classic Rock radio, “All Right Now”.
Between the playful pick up banter of the lyrics over the tense staccato guitar licks giving way to a smooth flowing bass groove on the hooky chorus and the mid song break for Kossoff’s elegant, high hat-supported solo, “All Right Now” was five and a half minutes of irresistible good time music that put Free on the map on both sides of the Atlantic. But with nimble teenage bassist Andy Fraser and steady Simon Kirke on drums supporting Rodgers and Kossoff, Free was ever so briefly more than the sum of its parts and produced several stone classics that rival “All Right Now” even if they’re not as well known. Among those was the killer title track from the same album, “Fire and Water”.
Equal parts heavy licks and carnal yearning, “Fire and Water” pointed Free down the path of that most abused sub genre in Rock, the power ballad. But Free had the knack, whether through Rodgers’ beautifully gritty and emotive voice or the bands’ razor edge as a whole, to transcend schmaltz and deliver the softer stuff with real passion and expressiveness. The resigned sadness of “Soon I Will Be Gone” is one of the finest exemplars of their sensitive side in action.
But despite their skill and seemingly unlimited future success, Free imploded, like so many other bands, due to drug and ego problems. The great Paul Kossoff in particular developed a terrible heroin addiction that proved the real undoing of the band. After a breakup in 1971, reunion in 1972 and the release of the decent but not really Free Heartbreaker in 1973 (it was mainly Rodgers and Kirke with hastily assembled support when Kossoff couldn’t and Fraser wouldn’t go), the band finally called it quits for good. Rodgers and Kirke went on to even greater fame and fortune with Bad Company and Fraser eventually became one of the 70s preeminent songwriters for mainstream rockers. Sadly, Kossoff’s masterful licks were forever silenced in 1976 by a heart attack at the age of 25, undoubtedly caused by the ravages of his addiction.
But the music, as they say, lives on. In their brief and tumultuous existence at the dawn of the 70s, Free produced a brand of hard, bluesy Rock music that made most of what was to come in that genre look a like slick, soulless imitation. The outstanding compilation Molten Gold testifies to that excellence with its 30 standout tracks. “Molten Gold” was also one of Kossoff’s finest contributions even if it is technically a solo work, his valedictory as one of the best, if now sadly overlooked, of the great British rock guitarists.
