Guest post by Nathan Arizona
There was an ill-starred British music festival in 1970 called Pfun City, “dedicated to the needs and desires of the Freak.” (Freaks were groovy in the hippie days; groovy was good.) Funders (phunders?) pulled out at the last minute leaving organizers with no way to pay the bands. It didn’t help that in the rush to finish now-unfunded preparations they did not manage to get the fences up. This made the festival an unintended free event. “Free’ no doubt suited “the needs and desires of the Freak,” but the absence of music would not.
So the desperate organizers had the bright idea of asking the bands to play for free. All the major acts went along in the name of peace and love, or because they could at least get some publicity out of it. All the major acts but one.
That band pulled up in their car, fielded the request to play without pay and said, “Nope.” Never even got out of the car.
Which band wouldn’t play for free? The blues-rock group Free. Of course. Wouldn’t be ironic otherwise.
The crowd missed a song often considered one of the best of the era, “All Right Now,” with a singer, Paul Rodgers, and guitarist, Paul Kossoff, rated among the best in the blues-rock style then taking over British rock. The London band was popular for its live performances but had only mild recording success for a couple of years until their huge hit with “All Right Now” in 1970. That got them a gig (paid) in front of 600,000 fans at the Isle of Wight Festival just before the Pfun fiasco. Free sold some 20 million records in its five-year career.
The band hasn’t made it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, though it has many champions. But in 1973 Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke helped form the hard-rock stadium group Bad Company, which the Hall inducted last year. Rodgers was the lead singer and wrote many of Bad Compant’s hits. Kossoff had a fiendish drug problem and died not long after Free broke up.
Here’s Free with “All Right Now.” It’s a staple on classic-rock radio and websites.
Rodgers continued to be in demand for his soulful vocals. In 2004 he joined Brian May and other members of Queen for several years as Paul Rodgers + Queen. Here they perform one of Bad Company’s most popular songs with Rodgers on vocals. He wrote the tune with help from Bad Company guitarist Mick Ralphs.
This song has been heard many times, but here it is again because it’s a favorite of Mr. Arizona. Rodgers sang lead on this Bad Company classic, which he wrote with drummer Kirke.
