Kiste Free & Bad Company

In the 1970s
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-78952-622-6
Verlag: Sonicbond Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 128 Seiten

Reihe: Decades

Free were formed in 1968 towards the end of the British blues boom. But after two critically acclaimed albums, it was the release of the acclaimed single 'All Right Now' and the album Fire and Water in 1970 that brought them major success. Musical and personal differences took their toll and they split after the comparative failure of their next album. However, after starting new bands that failed to take off, Free reformed before disbanding for good in 1973 following further dissension and guitarist Paul Kossoff's drug problems.
Vocalist Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke then formed Bad Company, who became one of the hottest bands on both sides of the Atlantic, maintaining a stable line-up with ex-Mott The Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and ex-King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell for the rest of the decade. Each member later pursued outside ventures, although they regrouped at intervals beyond the 1970s, recruiting new members after Ralphs' retirement and Burrell's death. This book examines both bands' work and career from 1968 to 1980, plus the Kossoff, Kirke, Tetsu, Rabbit album, Kossoff's solo work and with his band Back Street Crawler. A final chapter covers the band members' later history, most notably Rodgers' three years with Queen.

John Van der Kiste has published over seventy books, mostly historical biography and music, including 1973: A Year in Rock and Mott the Hoople and Ian Hunter in the 1970s for Sonicbond. He has also reviewed books and records for the local and national press and fanzines, and co-founded and edited the 70s fanzine Keep on Rockin'. He has performed with groups, run mobile discos, and written booklet notes for CD reissues from EMI and other labels. An occasional musician and songwriter, he also co-wrote one track on Riff Regan's Milestones album (2015) and played harmonica on London's The Hell for Leather Mob (2020). He lives in Devon, UK.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kiste, John Van Der

Leseproben

Chapter 2

1970

A few days into the new year and decade, a managerial decision was taken to record Free onstage for a subsequent live album. In-concert recordings were starting to circulate on bootleg vinyl albums, changing hands at large prices. The fact that they were strictly illegal made them more collectable still, but for the artists who didn’t receive any royalties, were annoyed with the poor audio quality and felt their music was being presented in an unfavourable light, they were bad news. In January, Island brought the Pye mobile studio to record part of a show played before an ecstatic crowd at Sunderland, to be kept for release at a suitable time.

Most of the songs captured had appeared on the first two albums, but the Rodgers/Fraser team had constantly been hard at work coming up with new material to keep the live set fresh. Among the most recent additions to the repertoire were four that would feature on the third album, and were gradually beginning to take shape – ‘Mr Big’, ‘Remember’ and ‘Oh I Wept’. The one that was about to transform their standing at a stroke was ‘All Right Now’.

The saga of how the song came about depends on whose version is considered the most accurate. According to Simon, they came offstage after one dreadful gig in the north – probably around the closing few weeks of 1969 – to only the sound of their own footsteps. In the dressing room, it hit them that they needed an instant song that the hordes would readily get up and dance to. A Paul Rodgers interview some years later contradicted this to some extent. As he pointed out, they’d had the sure-fire crowd-pleasing last song in their set for most of their history: namely ‘The Hunter’.

What is beyond doubt is they needed another number with that same instantly infectious spirit, and preferably one they’d written themselves. One of the prerequisites was to have a really catchy memorable chorus, and either Paul or Andy, not surprisingly, started singing ‘All right now, baby it’s all right now’. A couple of chords were added and the song grew from that, with Paul supplying the narrative beginning with a girl being eyed up in the street. The musical inspiration could’ve come from any number of sources – not least the Stones’ ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ with its ‘But it’s all right now’ chorus phrase, or the feel of ‘Honky Tonk Women’, with its basic chord foundation. Instinctively, they knew they had a winner. At one gig, they played it at the start almost without rehearsing. Towards the end of the show, Paul asked the audience if there were any requests during the short time left, or did they want them to play anything again. Almost as one, the audience called out for another performance of ‘that first one you did’. That, they knew, was enough to confirm that the song was making an immediate impact.

Later in January, they returned to Morgan Studios to begin work on album three. Neither Guy Stevens nor Chris Blackwell were around, and an overworked Andy Johns was present when they arrived at the studio with their gear. He told his assistant he’d been working very long days non-stop for several months and needed a rest, so he left them to it. As he pretended not to be there, they spent a few hours playing and trying things with the assistant, before leaving. Their next destination was Trident Studios with the young new engineer Roy Thomas Baker. This would be their home from home for the next two months until the second week in March. Whenever they had a break in their touring schedule, they returned there to record, eventually putting down seven new numbers. ‘Don’t Say You Love Me’ would long be associated with an amusing memory. It was a song Paul and Andy had written late at night at the latter’s house in Roehampton when they were both quite tired, hence the relaxed mood. Not long afterwards, they were playing Newcastle City Hall when the chief of police arrived, either having had reports of impending trouble, or expecting something of the kind to erupt. He walked on to the front of the stage with his back to the band, arms folded and looked threateningly at the audience. Paul Rodgers stopped the band and told them to play the song – really gently. The audience were pacified immediately and fell quiet. Exit one rather embarrassed senior police officer without a word (having realised that everything was all right now, one might say), to the amusement of musicians and punters alike.

After two months of recording on and off, the band had completed the album with assistance from Roy Baker, and delivered the masters to Island, convinced they now knew enough to be able to do everything themselves. When Chris Blackwell listened to the result, he called a meeting at the office and told them it would never do, as it was unfinished; it sounded too live, too sparse, required overdubs, and above all, needed remixing. He was sure ‘All Right Now’ had major hit potential once some work was done, but at over six minutes it was much too long for a single and would never get played on the radio. Would they cut it down, remove or at least compact the guitar solo and take a verse out as well? Although they kept quiet about it, they’d recorded the song three times, the first attempt being a rather more poppy version a little over three minutes long with an a cappella chorus as intro, backing vocals, maracas and tambourines but no guitar solo; to say nothing of Simon and Andy getting down on their knees and hammering the Hammond organ bass pedals with their fists.

This was one battle they knew they couldn’t win. They left the offices thoroughly deflated. But a few successful gigs raised their spirits again, and after another BBC session in April, they reluctantly returned to the studio. Chris Blackwell had chosen John Kelly to co-produce the album, insisting that the band overdub the original masters and then remix everything. It was something of a compromise, with neither Blackwell (who was effectively co-producer with Kelly, though uncredited on the cover) nor the band completely happy with the result. He had stood firm on editing ‘All Right Now’ for the single, taking out the first section of the guitar solo and the final verse: or rather, the third verse (which was in fact the second one repeated after the guitar break), but allowed the full 5½-minute album version to remain intact. The editing reduced the single to a more compact 4¼ minutes, in order not to jeopardise their chances of airplay.

‘All Right Now’ was released as a single in May, with ‘Mouthful Of Grass’ on the B-side. It coincided with the group’s appearance at the Hollywood Festival, Newcastle-under-Lyme, on the weekend of 23/24 May, headlined by Grateful Dead, with Traffic, Black Sabbath, José Feliciano and the previously almost unknown Mungo Jerry, who ended up stealing the show. After playing on the Sunday afternoon, Free were called back for two encores. The media reaction was immediate, with one prominent exception being the opinion of Roger Daltrey when he was played the record in Melody Maker’s Blind Date session. He conceded, ‘Good voice, though the tune is a bit meaningless,’ but that it must be a B-side, as he could not imagine anyone releasing it as an A-side, and thought it must be Fleetwood Mac. ‘Oh dear, I’m really not interested and I don’t care!’

Fortunately for Free, almost everyone else did care. Music journalists leapt on it immediately, full of praise, and in its first week it entered the charts at number 36. Fortuitously, The Rolling Stones were in the process of changing record companies and launching their own label, and a gap of almost two years without a new single from them worked very much to Free’s advantage. The music weeklies all heralded them as the group to replace The Stones; even calling them ‘the new Stones’, and some journalists immediately made comparisons between Mick Jagger’s stage presence and Paul’s fronting of the band with the mic stand as a prop if not a weapon. Suddenly hot property, Free’s booking fee rocketed to twice what it had been at the beginning of the summer, if not more.

A mixed blessing came in the shape of a request from the BBC for Free to appear on Top Of The Pops that week. None of them had any great desire to appear on the show that could immediately send a new release sky-high. But despite having made strenuous efforts in the previous few months to include rock and progressive acts with the pop groups and middle-of-the-road entertainers, some still saw Top Of The Pops as a kids’ show that could destroy a band’s credibility at once. Nevertheless, the band’s management – hell-bent on a hit for their brightest hope – insisted it would be good for business. The TV production team had to check the lyrics carefully, listening several times to satisfy themselves that Paul was singing ‘Let’s move before they raise the parking rate’ at the end of the first verse, and not ‘the fucking rent’. (As the line had to rhyme with ‘don’t hesitate’, to anybody listening properly, it must’ve been obvious.) Having passed the profanity test and spent a tedious few hours rehearsing and perfecting camera angles, the group were allowed on. Paul insisted on being allowed to sing live to their backing track – something other bands were increasingly doing – the other three miming their instruments with ill-concealed disdain in front of the cameras. At least they could bask in the knowledge that they’d hit the...