I’ve loved the striking star striding LP cover of Free since before I knew why. I remember flicking through a friend of my parents’ record collection* and happening across it when I was about 8 and thinking ‘wow‘.
I still think ‘wow‘, even though I now think that Ron Raffaelli’s photo looks as much like an attempt to upskirt a galaxy, than a groovy embodiment of cosmic freedom.
It has to be said the cover art for Free is a huge improvement on that for their debut Tons Of Sobs, but is the album?
Kicking off an LP with a track as cocksure and loaded as ‘I’ll Be Creepin” is a great move. Right from the off we get that superlative Simon Kirke/Andy Fraser** rhythm section just locking in, Free were such a wonderfully soulful combo. The music is actually very spare, but beautifully melodic and heartfelt, Paul Rodgers selling every line, while Paul Kossoff’s sharp solo is great. It’s a brilliant opener, if you overlook that whole coercive control thang they have going on^.
Free turn damnably funky on ‘Songs Of Yesterday’, in fact the opening few bars are really close to Gil Scott Heron’s ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’, which came out 2 years later. It’s a fabulously self-contained blues/funk/rock workout.
The bucolic ‘Lying In The Sunshine’ is another great cut, I’m all for anyone actively advocating for impromptu laziness in this manner, particularly when it leads right into the big-nuts strut of ‘Trouble On Double Time’. It’s a great one and you have to love that clean solo from Kossoff. The sweetly pastoral ‘Mouthful Of Grass’ finishes the side with an optimistic air.
Free hits us with the dirty, lowdown^* ‘Woman’ and by god it’s just sexy and brilliant, even if it sounds like they forgot to write any proper lyrics for it.
‘Free Me’ may well be one of the best songs the band ever waxinated. It’s a stunningly heartfelt slow blues lament, absolutely minimal, quiet and clean; everyone playing at their zenith. Paul Kossoff does that thing that only he did, letting slip the notes of his solo with all the gentility and sensitivity of a man floating rose petals on a pool of clear cool water. It is utterly superior stuff.
‘Broad Daylight’ is fine, but the weakest cut here, needing a better tune and lyrics. This tune is an object lesson in a great band rescuing a bang average tune with a good performance. ‘Mourning Sad Morning’ is a much better affair, Rodgers’ phrasing is perfect and the unexpected touch of Chris Wood’s flute gives the band an interesting melodic counterpoint throughout this restrained lament.
And that’s all you get on Free, which is in the manner of 1970 only 35 minutes long and beautifully formed.
As with all the great British bands of the era I am just dumbfounded at how hard they worked. Free was released only 7 months after Tons Of Sobs, although the self-indulgent slobs waited a whole 8 months before releasing Fire And Water; all presumably whilst playing 438 shows annually, including matinees.
People don’t talk enough about Free, they tend to get eclipsed by the other big hitters of the era, which is utterly wrong. Individually as musicians they were all amazing, as a collective they were magical; spinning straw into gold before our very, umm, ears.
Free is absolutely of a level with Free’s very best, maybe a touch better song writing is wanted in a couple places to elevate the LP to the Olympian heights, but let’s not try and pretend I’m remotely objective about Free.
Don’t free me.
1308 Down.
PS: There is just so much to love in this clip – Rodgers’ trousers, Kossoff’s lovely soft-looking hands, Simon Kirke looking really pissed off that he’s not allowed to hit things harder on this track, Fraser’s facial expressions. Oh, and the flawless, soulful rendition of the song.
*this being a common occupation of hippie kids of my generation bored by adult talk. It is a potential reason why you’re reading this right now.
**still only 16 when Free was recorded.
^and I’m not being flippant about that; ‘If you’re trying to screw me, babe, don’t play around /’Cause when I get to you, baby, I won’t make no sound’ may have been less remarkable in the late 60’s for a band honed and steeped in the blues tradition but it clangs today. I put it down to the tenor of the times and the fact that the band were all still teenagers when they began recording Free.
^*dirty and lowdown being the only flavours of feminine available on early Free tunes.
