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‘All Right Now’: Free rock steady, amazing live footage from 1970

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Free is one of those bands who most people know from just their two hits singles “All Right Now” and “Wishing Well” and pretty much nothing else. Both tracks still receive much radio airplay and can usually guarantee gents of certain age will be air guitaring once the solos start. But for all the acclaim and enjoyment of these singles, little is ever said about how truly tight this band were live or how groundbreaking they were, setting down a style of music for other bands to follow.

Free were a hard rock and blues band consisting of Paul Rodgers (vocals), Paul Kossoff (guitar), Andy Fraser (bass) and Simon Kirke (drums). They were all young teenagers when they first started gigging in different bands. Through the guidance of legendary blues man Alexis Korner the four like-minded youngsters came together to form a group in 1968. The youngest was fifteen (Fraser). The eldest were eighteen (Rodgers, Kirke). Korner dubbed the band “Free” and so they were born.
 
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Free spent long hours rehearsing until they were almost telepathically in tune with each other. They gigged everywhere—no place was too lowly or too small—from boozer to club to proper theaters. At a time when music was shifting from psychedelia and flower power to blues and rock, Free were a part of a new generation of bands that were ringing in the changes.

In 1968, they released their debut album Tons of Sobs—a good and powerful blues album that sounded as if it was recorded in one goose-bump, adrenaline-pumping take—with amazing interplay between Rodgers’ vocals and Kossoff’s guitar. However, it did little to raise the band’s profile. However, live they were getting the attention they hoped for and a legion of dedicated fans started turning up at their gigs.
 
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In 1969, Free released their eponymous second album, which didn’t do as well as expected (it should have sold shedloads). It was during this point there was early signs of division within the group as Rogers and Fraser formed a songwriting partnership which dictated the direction and style of the band. It left Kossoff and Kirke feeling isolated and a tad mutinous. Guitarist and drummer considered dumping Fraser and replacing him with Mott the Hoople’s Overened Watts. Kossoff also considered joining another band and auditioned as guitarist for The Rolling Stones. While Fraser and Rodgers wondered if they should form their own band. However, this was all temporarily forgotten about with the massive success of their next album Fire and Water—a stunning record which also contained their biggest hit single “All Right Now.”

Continuing under the writing partnership of Fraser and Rodgers, Free began to create a powerful, seminal white blues/hard rock sound that other bands would have greater success in copying. They found a steady pulse in Kirke’s drumming and a prodigiously talented guitarist in Kossoff. Free gave a star performance in front of 600,000 at the Isle of Wight Festival and were considered by many in the music press to be the future of rock. They had broken the American market and were seemingly on the verge of greatness.

But a fourth album Highway, also released in 1970, failed to follow-up on the success of Fire and Water. This together with disagreements between Rodgers and Fraser, and Kossoff’s serious drug problem, caused the band to temporarily split. The NME reported:

With their current single ‘My Brother Jake’ standing high in the UK charts, Free have disbanded!

The decision to break up was taken during the group’s recent Australian tour and now the various members are planning new bands.

Announcing the split, a spokesman said: ‘The boys felt they had achieved as much together as they possibly could within their existing framework. They have now decided to pursue individual careers..’

It was thought Kossoff and Kirke would stay together and assemble a new group. While Rodgers and Fraser would form their own bands. A live album—recorded at Sheffield and Croydon’s Fairfeld Hall—was planned for release but no further singles.

As fate would have it the release of a live album in 1971 proved to be yet another big hit and personal disagreements were soon resolved and the band released their fifth album Free At Last in 1971, which put them back in the Top 10. Free At Last is a dark, brooding, deeply felt and powerful album considered by some critics as a plea by the band for Kossoff to get off the drugs. During its recording Fraser allegedly kidnapped Kossoff in an attempt to get him clean—it didn’t work.

When it came time to tour and promote the album, the reality of Kossoff’s drug problem meant he was “physically incapable of performing.” Arguments flared between Fraser and Rodgers and the band split—this time with Rodgers and Kirke staying on as Free. The band’s last success was their sixth album Heartbreaker which charted big in both the UK and US and gave the band a final hit single “Wishing Well.”

Keeping reading after the jump… it’s Free…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.02.2016
01:21 pm
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‘All the Young Dudes’: The Ballad of Mott the Hoople

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Producer-cum-manager Guy Stevens brought the disparate members of Mott the Hoople together and gave them their iconic name. The name was taken from a pulp novel by Willard Manus which Stevens had read while in prison. It gave the band a certain outlaw image—a bit like Alex and his droogs in A Clockwork Orange. Stevens hoped Mott the Hoople would produce “a new kind of rock ‘n’ roll”—the bastard child of Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. The band was finalized when Stevens replaced original lead singer Stan Tippins with songwriter/session musician Ian Hunter.

They may have looked like the heshers from your high school woodwork class (or “hod carriers in drag” as Queen’s Roger Taylor once famously quipped), but their seeming ordinariness belied the fact this was no ordinary band. Indeed, it was soon apparent there was no one to equal Mott the Hoople live or as pioneers in progressing the rock ‘n’ roll art form. Hoople inspired an army of fans, many of whom went on to form their own bands or write/work in the music industry. For example, Mick Jones of The Clash, a band Stevens later produced. But their success onstage was never equaled in record sales. Added to which, they were highly eclectic as a band—guitarist Mick Ralphs was more aligned to blues and rock, while Hunter wrote in response to Steven’s often chaotic and contradictory demands. This meant their first three albums were very, very different to each other. One rock, one dark soul-searching songs and one folk rock—all of which seemed slightly at odds to the exuberance of their stage shows. However a brilliant fourth album Brain Capers (1971) focused the group into a new direction and won them a very important fan—David Bowie—who was to bring them a much needed hit.
 
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After a dispiriting gig at a converted gas station in Switzerland, where the audience just sat and gaped, Mott decided to call it a day. Returning to England, bassist Peter Overend Watts auditioned for Bowie’s band. Bowie hearing his favorite band had split offered Mott a song. His first suggestion was “Suffragette City” which was knocked back. Then “All the Young Dudes.” Ian Hunter later claimed this was the one song that made the hairs rise on the back of his neck. A song that perfectly captured what it was like to be young in the summer of 1972. Everyone knew it was going to be a hit.

World tours, hit singles and three classic albums followed, but Hoople’s success was all too short as keyboard player Verden Allen quit, then guitarist Ralphs left to form Bad Company, and eventually Hunter himself found the pressure waaaaaaaay too much and left.

Mott the Hoople became just “Mott” with Watts and drummer Dale “Buffin” Griffin being the only remaining original members—but they never had the same success. The creative magic Guy Stevens had seen in Mott’s original members was now sadly gone. A shame for they should have kept playing together for a year or two or more. But tastes change, fans grow up, and the ride still goes on somewhere else.

With contributions from virtually all of the key players, The Ballad of Mott the Hoople tells the story of one the seventies best and most loved bands from their formation to their untimely demise.
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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10.12.2015
02:00 pm
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