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Free: Chronicles

Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, May 2005

CURRENTLY ATTEMPTING the almost impossible task of filling Freddie Mercury's shoes in a new-look Queen, it's hard to imagine Paul Rodgers landing any further from ...

Audio interviews

Free's Andy Fraser (1991)

Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages audio, March 1991

The British Blues-rock bass wunderkind talks about joining John Mayall at 15, then of his years with the fabulous Free, including the writing of the iconic 'All Right Now', and Paul Kossoff's descent into drugs.

File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 42.8meg, total interview length: 54' 35" sound quality: ***

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Free: Tons Of Sobs (Island)

Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 22 March 1969

...IS A REASONABLY good programme by Free, a group often dismissed as "just another blues band." ...

Blind Faith, Delaney and Bonnie & Friends, Free: Inglewood Forum, Inglewood CA

Live Review by Ann Moses, New Musical Express, 30 August 1969

CLAPTON ADORATION ...

Mott The Hoople, Atomic Rooster, Free, Yes: Lanchester Arts Festival, Lanchester Polytechnic, Coventry

Live Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 7 February 1970

A MASS of gently struggling sons of Coventry and outlying parts politely tripped over each other in the seatless main hall at Lanchester Festival on ...

Free Out-Draw Leading Groups

Profile by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 13 June 1970

THEY MAY be new to the charts, crashing in at No. 18 with 'Alright Now', but Free are by no means newcomers on the scene. ...

Fans make it a Free for all

Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 27 June 1970

TO MANY wide-eyed, starstruck groups, a hit record is the culmination of their career; they can see no further. It is, for them the be-all ...

Free: Free At Last

Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 27 June 1970

A band who are slightly embarrassed by that long-awaited hit ...

Free Trip

Report and Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 4 July 1970

Beatlemania-type Free-fever grips Britain. CHRIS CHARLESWORTH reports from the front line ...

Free: Fire and Water (Island ILPS 9120)

Review by Rob Partridge, Record Mirror, 4 July 1970

'Fire and Water'; 'Oh I Wept'; 'Remember'; 'Heavy Load'; 'Mr Big'; 'Don't Say You Love Me'; 'All Right Now'. ...

Free: Fire and Water (Island stereo, ILPS.9120. 37s. 5d.)

Review and Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 11 July 1970

FREE'S FASTEST-SELLER Roy Carr's track-by-track with vocalist Paul Rodgers ...

Free: Free For All

Report by Rob Partridge, Record Mirror, 18 July 1970

A front row view of how Swindon got FREED ...

Free's chart success makes it tough on the fans

Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 1 August 1970

'But its the only thing that bothers us' says SIMON KIRKE ...

Free, Mott The Hoople: Fairfield Hall, Croydon

Live Review by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 19 September 1970

FAIRFIELD Hall, Croydon, has seen some amazing scenes since it became South London's home of rock, but I doubt whether the old faithfuls at the ...

Free Are All Right Now

Profile by Ben Edmonds, Circus, December 1970

HARD, THUMPING rock. That's what is coming out of England these days, and if it's a trend that can't very well last too long, at ...

Free: Highway (Island)

Review by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 19 December 1970

ONE OF THE criticisms levelled at Free since their final acceptance earlier this year is that many of their songs sound very much alike. With ...

Free: Highway (Island, ILPS 9138, 39s 11d)

Review and Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 19 December 1970

Free have never felt so close before Paul and Andy talk to Roy Carr about the new album ...

Free: Fairfield Hall, Croydon

Live Review by James Johnson, New Musical Express, 13 February 1971

A HUNDRED or so enegetic dancers had surrounded the stage by the end of Free's concert at Croydon's Fairfield Hall on Saturday but I don't ...

Free: Live (Island ILPS 9160. £2.15)

Review by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 12 June 1971

Free's last album — their finest ever? ...

Free: Royal Albert Hall, London

Live Review by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 19 February 1972

THE AUDIENCE WENT mad from the moment Free were introduced on Thursday at the Albert Hall. Nearly every number was greeted warmly with hoops and ...

West, Bruce & Laing, Free: Palladium, Hollywood CA

Live Review by John Mendelssohn, Los Angeles Times, 10 April 1972

West, Bruce & Laing Work Out on Late '60s ...

Free: Free For All (Island)

Review by Tony Stewart, New Musical Express, 27 May 1972

Free fall through being too complacent ...

Free: Free At Last

Review by Jon Tiven, Rolling Stone, 6 July 1972

RESURRECTED FROM what seemed a permanent split, Free is making a second bid at capturing the American public's heart. ...

ELP Plus Tull in Dirty Raincoats, and How Free May Drop the Name

Report by Keith Altham, New Musical Express, 5 August 1972

WATCHING EMERSON, LAKE and Palmer play a concert with Free in the middle of a raging typhoon in Tokyo with Carl Palmer performing an incredible ...

Free: Heartbreaker

Review by Bud Scoppa, Rolling Stone, 1 March 1973

FREE IS AN ENGLISH quartet that toured with Blind Faith, had a big hit single, was hailed by the British press as the new Rolling ...

Free: Heartbreaker

Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, May 1973

ERIC FALCON, local guppy for a major Memphis underground music radio station, claims that Free is the most exciting group around. He feels that a ...

Paul Kossoff: An Interview with Rock’s Street Crawler

Interview by Steven Rosen, Guitar Player, July 1976

THE LATE PAUL KOSSOFF, born in London, September 14, 1950, became the unsung guitar great of Free at the age of eighteen. That short-lived, but ...

Andy Fraser

Interview by Don Snowden, Phonograph Record, April 1977

THE SOUND OF Traffic's first album reverberates against barren, functional walls as gray as the overcast L.A. day outside. ...

Andy Fraser: Out Of It

Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1991

A rainy night in Shrewsbury was to alter the course of Andy Fraser's life. For it was there in 1970 that he first hummed the ...

Free: Paul Rodgers

Interview by Jim Irvin, unpublished, 1997

THIS INTERVIEW coincided with Paul Rodgers' 1997 album, Now, his first set of original material since Cut Loose in 1983. It was conducted in a ...

Free: The Harder They Come

Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 1998

They were young. They were feral. They played unfeasibly good rock music. And they hit the road hard. It could only end in heartbreak. Phil ...

Free

Sleeve notes by Phil Sutcliffe, Universal Records, July 1999

"We were hell-bent on what we did. I didn’t care if I lived or died but for the band." – Paul Rodgers ...

Free: Songs Of Yesterday

Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 2000

Well-presented 5-CD box. Three career-spanning discs of album outtakes, alternative mixes and remixes, one of live material and one of assorted Free side-projects. ...

Almost Famous

Film/DVD/TV Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, February 2001

Shrewdly sweet eulogy to rock'n'roll fandom ...

The Ballad of Free

Retrospective by Adam Blake, Cosmik Debris, February 2004

IT'S HARD TO imagine nowadays, but in the strict context of the then-emerging British blues boom, Free were a punk band, and Tons Of Sobs ...

Free: All right now? Nope

Retrospective by Nick Coleman, The Independent, 22 September 2006

Thirty years after drugs killed Free's guitarist, the band are back in vogue. They just won't talk to each other. ...

"Your Average Bloke Chatting Up Your Average Chick": Free's 'All Right Now'

Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, January 2007

'ALL RIGHT NOW' is one of the quintessential cock-rockers – a cruder, more pub-rockish 'Whole Lotta Love'. It's the sound of the longhaired male predator ...

Andy Johns 1952-2013

Obituary by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2013

ANDY JOHNS lived rock'n'roll, whether that meant delicately dangling microphones over a banister at country house studio Headley Grange to get the sound of John ...

see also Back Street Crawler

see also Bad Company

see also Andy Fraser

see also Paul Kossoff

see also Paul Rodgers

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