Back to the original reason for starting this blog in the first place. It was intended as a site to review albums and I was doing pretty well. Up to twenty reviewed after six months in. But it was just getting too time consuming. I'd live in these albums for weeks trying to do them justice and get to their essence. Frankly, if I was finding it such a grind out reviews which increasingly came to be like book chapters they must have been a bit of a chore to read to say the least to the non-committed. I still have Pere Ubu's Modern Dance to get back to from January. Will get there eventually. But so to Free. And this will be brief. I'm also breaking a rule in that I don't own the record and aren't listening to it on vinyl. But such is life!
It's a wet, winter's Friday in Newcastle. The streets are dripping with rain. I was sat at my desk a couple of hours ago mid-afternoon churning out admin for my colleagues as I'm asked to do quite a bit in my role in return for recompense. I like what I do generally but on a Friday afternoon my mind tends to wander and I need some kind of soundtrack to keep me ticking over before I get to clock off.
For some reason I thought about Creedence's single Green River single and how straightforward and pure its sentiments are. So it was Googled and after trawling through a few pages of song lyrics and cds and records to buy I found myself at a Dwight Yoakham feature where he was choosing is favourite singles. Green River was there as was this. Free's All Right Now.
I've never been a fan of this song and I'm not likely to change now. It's probably by several leagues what Free are destined to be remembered for when we're all dead and gone. A massive shame I think. But I liked the title of the B Side, Mouthful of Grass and went from there to its source, the bands second album, also entitled Free. It seemed a good way to spend my last half hour at work.
The album sounds very 1969. The band remarkably were all still in their late teens but their playing is deeply versed in the blues sound they're trying to pull off. It's remarkably accomplished, came out on Island, has an absolutely classic sleeve and was produced by Chris Blackwell so it's quite strange it did nothing particularly commercially. I imagine it served a purpose to spread the word further while Free trawled the live circuit where they were building a strong reputation.
It's long haired and laid back. You can practically inhale the banks of pot smoke, and see the curly teenage sideburns, fringed jackets and Persian rugs of its participants and their rehearsal space. Kossoff, Fraser and Kirke. They're expert players and Rodgers isn't particularly flashy. It's just the right side of British blues rock music for me before the drugs got heavier and the audience started to expect longer solos to allow them to nod off.
The titles are clipped and unfussy and the sentiments of the lyrics existential. Lying in the Sun, the third song describes the mood of the album perfectly. Occasionally things becomes slightly more urgent, 'I've been a bad boy and I know I should be good'. Well they're teenagers. Some of this stuff got a bit ugly over the next few years as British Rock turned to codpieces and eight minute solos. But Free are leaner and smarter than that here.
The guitars spiral and unwind throughout not unlike the way The Beatles guitars do in Abbey Road. There's a similar gospel chill about the backing vocals. It evokes a different and utterly distant moment in time. Kossoff somehow seems like their unspoken leader despite Rodgers strutting forth at the front. He's generally restrained, as are the rest of the band. It only really ebbs when Rodgers takes command and overdoes it on the clichéd rock lyric front. Particularly on second track 'Songs of Yesterday'. Generally though there seems to be a drive to remain faithful to their source material whilst pushing it towards somewhere new. An expression of English consciousness. There's little attempt to swagger around as if they were from Alabama as Jagger was starting to do round about this point.
It's all of a piece. They barely sound a wrong note. It's surely best listened to on a sunny afternoon rather than during the wet miserable downpour happening outside my window now. I'm very pleased I've chanced upon it and I'll listen to it again and eventually buy a vinyl copy when I find a reasonably priced one. It's an elegant record and really quite a remarkable one given the ages of the people who made it. Blackwell's influence must have helped but they're an incredibly self contained unit.
Free is a good word for it. The band are captured in a dozy, spaced mood that stretches itself in feline laziness across the whole record. An album that relaxed and soothed me on a horrid, bleak afternoon. I'm grateful to it and off to my local for Friday pints. Another evening when I'm there and it's quieter I'll have a look for Mouthful of Grass or Lying in the Grass or Mourning Sad Morning on the Jukebox and if they're there stick them on because they've already won me over.
Told you it would be short! Rosie's calls.
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