ROCK’N’ROLL FANTASY: THE MUSICAL JOURNEY OF FREE AND BAD COMPANY, by David Roberts

Time was when Genesis Publications, the Guildford-based company founded by George Harrison’s friend Brian Roylance, had the monopoly on expensive limited-edition rock books but they were joined a few years ago by Rufus Stone Limited Editions in Newbury, which specialises in hard rock. Now there’s another new kid on the block: This Day In Music Books, an offshoot of the website run by musician, PR and editor Neil Cossar which, as you might expect, lists music-related events on any particular day of the year. Yesterday, June 21, the day I began to write this, Columbia Records in 1948 in New York launched a new vinyl disc that spun at thirty-three and a third revs per minute. Caught on didn’t it?

        TDIM Books have already published several conventionally priced music books but this is their first foray into the luxury book market. Rock’N’Roll Fantasy: The Musical Journey of Free and Bad Company, compiled by uber-fan David Roberts, is a full-colour 400-page large format book printed on art paper that in its £75 top-of-the-market edition is hard-cased with an accompanying bag of goodies like replica concert tickets, what looks like home photos and artwork prints. You can get the book on its own for a penny shy of £40. 

        And very nice it is too, though I must declare an interest since my reports for Melody Maker on Free and Bad Co occupy several pages within. Indeed, my arrival on MM in the summer of 1970 coincided with ‘All Right Now’ topping the UK charts, thus confirming Free’s ascendency to rock’s high table, at least until instability, competing egos, poor management and hard drugs forced them apart. I thus found myself covering them fairly closely, interviewing them and seeing several shows. Best of all was one in Sunderland on June 26, 1970, at the local Top Rank Suite. ‘Freemania broke out in Sunderland on Friday,’ I reported somewhat sensationally in one of my earliest MM concert reviews, which can be found in the book. Over 50 years later I can still recall the euphoric scenes as Free, on the cusp of greatness, triumphed on the singer’s home patch. 

        The truth is I loved Free. They weren’t naturals on Top Of The Tops miming to ‘All Right Now’ but they were naturals on stage: Paul Rodgers, an expressive, soulful, confident and sexy vocalist (1); Paul Kossoff, a tasteful guitar player who unlike many in his trade knew not just what to play but also just what to leave out; Andy Fraser, a bassist with an elastic style all of his own; and Simon Kirke, tough as old rope, solid and unfussy at the back, a handsome devil too. They had a spring in their step in those early days, the best young band of the year in my view, and I was massively disappointed they didn’t stay together for longer.  

        The rise and fall of Free occupies the first half of Rock’N’Roll Fantasy, with the rest of the book largely devoted to Bad Company aside from a few pages given over to other projects involving those former Freemen, like Fraser’s Sharks, Rodgers’ Peace, Kossoff’s Back Street Crawlers and, later, Rodgers’ solo work and his adventures with Jimmy Page and Queen. It is heavily illustrated with pictures of all the bands, record sleeves and miscellaneous memorabilia, and due tribute is paid to those members of the groups who have passed on.

        The text is largely made up of long quotes from fans, friends and a few industry insiders, some famous, most simply devotees, stretching back from Rodgers’ early life in Middlesbrough to the present day. I was particularly amused by one quote from a fan who was arrested for fly-posting. In reality he was trying to remove a poster of Free from a wall so he could hang it in his bedroom. Since the book is authorised by Rodgers and Kirke, they contribute extensively throughout.

        I was never as enamoured of Bad Company as I was with Free. I acknowledged that they were a solid, hard-rocking, hard-working four-piece band whose success was more or less inevitable, given that they included Rodgers and Kirke, along with Mott The Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and wild card bassist Boz Burrell, and were managed by Led Zeppelin supremo Peter Grant. Despite their success, I felt there was something predictable and rather formulaic about their music; as if – much like Queen – it was designed on a drawing board where essential requirements for success were ticked off according to market research. Still, they made it big and their fans loved them, as can be seen from the citations from the many admirers who have contributed to this book.

A spread from the book showing Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers on stage. 

        I saw Bad Co several times, the most memorable in New York’s Central Park on September 4, 1974, when Jimmy Page, watching from the side-lines, hopped up on stage to jam with them on their closing number, much to the horror of Foghat whose unenviable task it was to follow them. My review of that night is also in the book, as is my report from California when they performed two nights at Winterland in San Francisco and a night later at the LA Forum, where once again members of Zep stepped up on stage to boost the excitement to fever pitch. A picture taken that night made MM’s front page the following week. 

        What I didn’t mention in MM at the time, for obvious reasons, was that on Bad Co’s Viscount jet from SF to LA I was sitting minding my own business when one of their roadies came down the aisle and whispered in my ear, “Peter wants to see you.” It was like being summoned to face the judge. I made my way to the private room at the back of the plane where Peter Grant was holding court with some of the band. On a table in front of him was a big mound of cocaine. Peter offered me some and I partook. “Did you enjoy the show?” he asked quite pleasantly. 

        “Er, yes Peter.” 

        “Well, mind you say so in that paper of yours. You can go now.”

        There was a big smile on Peter Grant’s face but the hint of menace he conveyed is as memorable today as that night all those years ago in Sunderland with Free.

******

(1) One day in 1972, during one of his periodic bouts of dissatisfaction with Deep Purple, Ritchie Blackmore confided in me that he thought Paul Rodgers was the best young singer in the UK and wanted to form a band with him. “Can you have a word with him?” Ritchie asked, knowing that I knew Free. I never did. 

ANDY FRASER - RIP

As I write elsewhere on Just Backdated, my arrival at Melody Maker in the summer of 1970 coincided with ‘All Right Now’ becoming a huge hit and Free breaking big time. As a result I saw them several times, interviewed them – mostly Paul Rodgers – and travelled with them on the road. Looking back now I always thought that their bassist Andy Fraser, who died in California on Monday aged 62, put the spring in their step, his inventive, popping bass lines adding a unique resonance to this young, ambitious and innovative blues group.

          Paul Kossoff was a strikingly original guitarist who instinctively knew that what you left out was as important as what you put in, Paul Rodgers had a wonderfully soulful voice and knew how to engage an audience and Simon Kirke was solid as a rock on drums. But of the four I think it was Andy’s bass lines that raised the group above the rank and file. He was also extraordinarily young, 17 going on 18 when ‘All Right Now’, which he co-wrote with Rodgers, reached number two that year.

          The song was written hurriedly, according to Simon Kirke who recalls Andy coming up with the bass riff in a dressing room in Durham: “It was obvious that we needed a rocker to close our shows. All of a sudden the inspiration struck Fraser and he started bopping around singing ‘All Right Now’. He sat down and wrote it right there in the dressing room. It couldn't have taken more than 10 minutes.”

          Andy and Paul Rodgers co-wrote most of Free’s material but it was the tension between them that split the group, Andy being the first to leave and Kossoff’s drug problems taking the wind from their sails.

          In an unpublished memoir written by Simon Kirke, Free’s drummer writes about the moment he and the rest of the group were told that ‘All Right Now’ was a hit: “I was sitting in my flat when the phone rang. It was Denise, the secretary at Island. ‘You have to come over now for a photo session. ‘All right now’ has gone from outside the top 50 to number four. All the music papers want interviews with you. I’m sending a car.’ Fuck me, there was a sign… Denise sending a car!

          “And so began our ‘overnight success’. All those hundreds of gigs we had done, all the thousands of miles traveling the length and breadth of England were paying off. We had established a fan base and it was rock solid. We did Top Of The Pops which was a bit of a drag because we had to do it semi live. I say semi because the Musicians Union had stipulated that songs which were broadcast on the TV or radio had to have at least one member of the band playing live. I guess it guaranteed some musician a piece of work somewhere. Anyway Paul was quite happy to sing the song live. He was a consummate professional. We had one hurdle to cross though. The boys at the BBC were sure Paul was singing: ‘Raise the fucking rate’. We assured them the word was ‘parking’ but they refused to take our word for it and we had to play the vocal to them isolated from the rest of the tracks to ensure that indeed the word was ‘parking’. This show was broadcast to millions of people throughout Britain and within two weeks it had climbed to number two… where it stayed behind Mango Jerry’s ‘In The Summertime’. Thwarted by a jug band!”

          It’s still a great song, should have been a number one. RIP Andy. 

FREE - Aright In Sunderland

As I wrote yesterday, Free were heroes in the North East, thanks largely to Paul Rodgers hailing from Middlesbrough. He could be a prickly character and people were often on edge around him, but that side of him didn’t really come out until Bad Company whose manager Peter Grant once told me that Paul was the trickiest artist he’d ever had to manage, and Grant managed Led Zeppelin too, don’t forget.

Here’s my report of catching Free in the North East, from MM in July of 1970. I closed it with a reference to Bath, which must have been the Bath Festival – headlined by Zep – so I probably left Sunderland, stayed at my dad’s house in Skipton for a night and drove down to Somerset the next day. Two months into my new job on MM and I was already catapulted from reporting Slough Magistrates Court to the front line of UK rock. Truly wonderful it was, talk about being in the right place at the right time…

Freemania broke out in Sunderland on Friday. It’s a disease you may not have heard of yet – but it looks very much as though the epidemic will spread. It’s very infectious.

The symptoms are caused by too much exposure to four young musicians who come under the collective name of Free. They are no strangers to the pop world, but the reception they received in the North East was like history repeating itself.

The best known remedy for the disease would appear to be acquiring an Island album just released called Fire And Water. Temporary relief can be gained by investing in a single called ‘All Right Now’, currently reaching for the top spot in the charts.

The scenes at the Mecca Ballroom in Sunderland on Friday resembled Beatlemania in its hey-day. Two and a half thousand packed the dance hall to listen to Free. They surged on the small revolving stage during the closing numbers and a line of staff had to link arms to prevent singer Paul Rodgers being manhandled by excited young girls.

        Many were carried backstage suffering from the effects of the electric atmosphere. Some managed to crash the human barrier and clamber behind the tiny stage just to touch Paul as he gulped Cokes between numbers.

“It’s like this every time we play here,” he gasped as the crowd at the front cheered for more. “It’s bloody fantastic. Each time we play the reception is worse – or better – whichever way you look at it.”

Free played for slightly over an hour. Each number they played was greeted with knowing applause. Their albums must sell well in that part of the country.

Because of the huge tension that was building up inside the hall, it was decided by the management to put them on earlier than the supporting acts. Crowds were being turned away at the door and the hall was filled way above the safety maximum. Word had obviously spread around that Paul’s hometown is Middlesbrough. He was greeted like an old friend.

Stalking the stage in Jagger fashion, he grasps the microphone stand above his head like a staff. His beard is taking nice shape since I last saw him, and with his silver flared pants and tight red sweater he is just the part to set the girls screaming.

But it’s not all hero worship. Fans listened to the music. The ovation was for the music as much as for the quartet who made it.

When he did a slow one they sat and listened. When the band played a heavy number, the floor of the great hall shook beneath me as two and a half thousand feet stamped in unison.

Their act reached a tremendous climax with ‘All Right Now’, their current hit. Playing the longer, heavier version from the album, the group put all they had into it –and the fans at the front stood for a better view. Then everybody stood and the whole seething mass pushed forward.

Paul, apprehensive at the approaching mob in his precarious platform, couldn’t have been blamed had he refused to go on. But on he went. Guitarists Paul Kossoff and Andy Fraser leaped around the stage in Townshend fashion and drummer Simon Kirk – looking as though he had just stepped from a shower fully clothed – bashed his drums so hard they kept falling over.

‘All Right Now’ over, the real stampede started. Teenage girls, many looking as though they hadn’t yet reached secondary school, rushed up on the stage. For those who got past the barrier there was a reassuring Paul behind the stage to calm them down.

As the cheers grew louder there was a hurried conference about going on again. And when the crowd had calmed they whipped up the frenzy again. Eventually they stood down – and by a masterly stroke of organisation managed to clamber out of a fire exit, through into the open air and into a back entrance to the ballroom’s private bar.

Peace at last away from the power-packed amplifiers and wild admirers, the boys had a chance to talk about their phenomenal success.

Gulping at a well-earned double pineapple juice, Paul told me what it was like to be at the centre of such a scene. “It just gets better and better,” he gasped for a second time. “We have played up here a couple of times before at Durham and Redcar and now the audiences seem to be getting to know us.

“They recognise us and I recognise familiar faces out there. We have had this kind of reception at some places down south like the Country Club and the Lyceum, and they once went pretty crazy at a college near the Albert Hall.

“We did the Locarno here in Sunderland, or Fillmore North as they call it, and it was the same as tonight. They just seem to love us up here. I think the word has got around that my home town is Middlesbrough and that may help a bit.

“We tried to record a live album at the Sunderland Locarno but the audience rushed the stage there like tonight and the tapes were spoiled.

“It was great when we first went on tonight because they all seemed to say ‘hello’ to us at once. They seem to know all the songs we sing so I think they must have bought our albums. They listen to the music which is good. Even the younger ones seem more interested in the music.”

Lead guitarist Paul Kossoff agreed. After wiping down a sweat-soaked Gibson, he said the audiences had changed since the days of wild adulation just because a group had had a hit.

“I think they gave us that kind of reception because they liked the music. You can tell that because we did a couple of slower numbers and instead of screaming and clapping they just sat and listened. They really seemed to appreciate the song instead of us on stage.”

Champagne arrived from the promoters and with a little help from MM and a squad of girlfriends, several bottles soon went back empty.

With the bottles empty, the promoters a bit merry and the doormen agreeing that it had been a night to remember – “Even Love Affair in their
hey-day didn’t get this kind
of reaction,” one of them said – the group left for their
hotel.

For me, Bath was beckoning – but it had been a night to remember.

FREE - All Right Then, in the summer of 1970

My arrival at Melody Maker in the summer of 1970 coincided with ‘All Right Now’ becoming a huge hit and Free breaking big time. I really liked the group and latched on to them quickly, going twice to see them play in their stomping ground, the North East, and interviewing them many times. This had the additional benefit of forming a lifelong friendship with Geoff Doherty, then the area’s top rock promoter, and Island’s PR David Sandison, now sadly with us no more.

My first trip abroad, to Holland, as an MM reporter was also with Free, on an Island Records package tour that also featured Traffic. But here’s my first interview with Free, published by MM in June 1970, a few weeks into the job. I remember going to Paul Rodger’s poky little flat in a big old redbrick block in Clerkenwell to meet him, and we went to a nearby greasy spoon café to do the interview. Tomorrow I’ll report on Freemania in the North East.

For some groups a hit record is the answer to a prayer, recognition after years of work and a reasonably steady income at last.

For others it’s a bit of an embarrassment.

Free, currently at number four in the MM chart with ‘All Right Now’ and rising rapidly, come into the second category. So much so that singer Paul Rodgers is as concerned about a follow-up as the Beatles are about not performing live any more.

“We are not really a single band and never have been,” he told me. “There may be another single and there may not be. I am really surprised at the success of ‘All Right Now’. I don’t see myself as a single singer, but it’s there and people are going to be a lot more interested in buying the album because they will have heard of us.”

The album Paul refers to should be pretty familiar to Free fans who have heard them playing lively gigs over the past 12 months. Many of the tracks are numbers they have featured in concert, including ‘Mr. Big’, ‘Fire And Water’, ‘Heavy Load’, ‘Oh I Wept’, ‘Don’t Say You Love Me’ and a longer version of ‘All Right Now’ with a heavier solo.

The album, called Fire and Water, comes out today (Friday).

The embarrassment of a hit record spreads to having to do semi-live shows like Top Of The Pops, which the band were obliged to do under protest.

“They asked us to do Top Of The Pops so we did it. None of us wanted to do the show but the management said we had to but we didn’t enjoy it at all, but we did Disco Two and quite enjoyed that.

“There was too much standing around waiting on Top Of The Pops, but there was an easier atmosphere in Disco Two. I felt very inhibited and the rest of the band felt the same because they were just pretending to play their instruments. It wasn’t too bad for me because I was singing. At least you are actually playing instruments on Disco Two.”

Free scored a massive hit with the crowd at the recent Hollywood Festival where they did two encores and this has given them plenty of confidence. At the Isle of Wight last year bad organisation left them just ten minutes playing time, which Paul describes as a “shambles”.

At the moment they are very busy with gigs in this country and tours in the near future planned for Holland and Germany. In September they are off to the States for a month.

“We are writing and playing lots of songs now and we have lots of material put by,” says Paul. “Andy Fraser, the group’s bass guitarist, and I have about forty to fifty songs lying around that we intend getting together. We are trying to sort some things out this week.”

Free were born about two years ago and, apart from Paul and Andy, the group features Paul Kossof on guitar and Simon Kirke on drums. “During the last twelve months, we have been getting a lot of people to come and see us. There just seems to be more and more people each time we play and it’s great,” says Paul.

“We were playing ‘All Right Now’ live before we recorded it as a single for a couple of months. We wanted a song that everybody could clap their hands to and sing so we got our heads together and wrote it.”

For a group who write practically all their own material, the inevitable question of influence crops up. Paul: “You tend to absorb the influence of people you listen to and like. The way they play or sing influences me and there’s quite a lot I could name.

“James Brown, Little Richard and B.B. King are just a few, but I also love Otis Redding, Rod Stewart and the Band, and, of course, the Beatles. I have just heard an album from an American group called Bread and it really was very nice stuff.”