Free- Fire and Water- Paul Rodgers
It’s now been more than a half century since the release of Fire and Water in early Summer 1970, the breakthrough album by the erstwhile teenage London band Free. With the exception of B.B.King’s Top 40 hit “The Thrill Is Gone”, most American white Baby Boomer teenagers had gotten our limited exposure to the blues second-hand via young English bands such as Led Zeppelin. And even though the members of London-based Free were no older than me in 1969 (bass player Andy Fraser was a veteran of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers at 15 !), the sound of lead singer Paul Rodgers’ voice and lead guitarist Paul Kossoff’s crying sustained notes, in very sparse arrangements, really appealed to me then.
I won’t hesitate to admit that indeed it was “All Right Now” on US Top 40 radio in 1970 that got me to check out Free’s essential third album, Fire and Water. But when he heard me play “The Stealer” by Free on my radio show in Findlay OH while he was waiting to do soundcheck before a performance, no less than Bob Seger approached me to discuss our mutual admiration for Free, and it was during that conversation that Seger turned me onto the earlier Free album and the even more obscure Tons of Sobs, both of which preceded June 1970’s Fire and Water. 
Drummer Simon Kirke (far left) would go on with Paul Rodgers (2nd from right) to found Bad Company by 1974, & Kossoff (far right) succumbed to the ravages of heroin addiction in 1976, but not before recording six Free studio albums containing “Woman”,”Fire and Water”,”Heavy Load”,”All Right Now” written by Fraser (sadly Andy Fraser, bass player who as a teenager wrote and performed “All Right Now”, passed away a few years ago after a chronic illness); “The Stealer”,”Catch a Train”, the shoulda-been-a-hit “Little Bit of Love”, and often-covered “Wishing Well” from the breakup and seemingly swan song At Last in Summer 1972; and the actual finale, Heartbreaker, six months later. It’s all in this classic rock interview with Paul Rodgers documenting Free Fire and Water. –Redbeard
