Free are famous for “All Right Now”, the track they released from the album Fire and Water (1970) which became a staple anthem for rockers thereafter.
The band had been formed by a group of boys who, by the time they released their first album, Tons of Sobs (1969), were still only teenagers, albeit with significant gigging experience gained in different bands. Free (1969) moved the band on from their blues beginnings to a rock sound. Fire and Water (1970) was their seminal album and although Highway (1970) was considered to be a solid follow-up, it failed to recapture the chart success.
The patchy sales, relationship issues within the band and erratic behaviour from an increasingly drug-addled Paul Kossoff resulted in the break-up of the band in 1971 but they put their problems aside and reformed in 1971. Free at Last was released in 1972 but the reformation wasn’t to last. Andy Fraser left and the remaining members recruited Tetsu Yamauchi and John “Rabbit” Bundrick in his place and released Heartbreaker, the last Free album.
Free disbanded for the last time in 1973 and the members moved on to new projects including Bad Company. A brief attempt at a reformation was halted abruptly when Kossoff died in 1976, from a drug related heart attack, aged only 25.
