In 1968, the members of Free came together featuring a young Paul Rodgers at the helm. The band wasn’t necessarily known for their studio albums, but instead, their non-stop touring and live shows drove their success, save for their one and only hit, the song “All Right Now.” Let’s take a deep dive into more of what made the band Free so interesting:
- Free drummer Simon Kirke explained: “The song ‘All Right Now’ was created after a bad gig in Durham, England. Our repertoire at that time was mostly slow and medium paced blues songs which was alright if you were a student sitting quietly and nodding your head to the beat. However, we finished our show in Durham and walked off the stage to the sound of our own footsteps. The applause had died before I had even left the drum riser. When we got into the dressing room, it was obvious that we needed an uptempo number, a rocker to close our shows. All of a sudden, the inspiration struck (bass player Andy) 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.”
- Lead Singer Paul Rodgers began his musical career fronting the band Free, but his biggest success was actually fronting Bad Company, and later taking a turn in the 80s band The Firm, and the reincarnated Queen in the early 2000s
- For those of you that enjoy the song All Right Now, you may have first been exposed to it on your favorite radio station in the 70s. If you can believe it, the radio edit of the song is shorter by nearly one minute versus the album edit. If you spin the record at home, you’ll find a longer guitar solo
- Rolling Stone has referred to the band as “British hard rock pioneers”. The magazine ranked Rodgers No. 55 in its list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”, while bandmate Paul Kossoff was ranked No. 51 in its list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”
- In the early 1970s Free became one of the biggest-selling British blues rock groups; by the time they disbanded, they had sold more than 20 million albums around the world and had played more than 700 arena and festival concerts
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