25 minutes of perfection.. and not a pedal in sight

equalsql

FREE - Live @ Granada TV Studios, Manchester, England 24th July 1970

Yep.. I'm old skool... but this is (for me ) about as perfect as it gets..

RIP Paul and Andy.

JezWynd

Same year, same studio -

Philly_Q

^ With George Best in the audience!

IvisonGuitars

Yup. Absolutely Awesome. I don't think any one of them was barely 20 either....mindblowing.

boogieman

Great band. I read somewhere that nobody knew Paul Rodgers could sing till the singer in his old band didn't turn up one day and he volunteered to step in.

mudslide73

... puts a copy of the pre remastered Free Live into the car.

equalsql

mudslide73 said:

... puts a copy of the pre remastered Free Live into the car.

A wise choice Kemosahbee 

xSkarloey

I've looked at that a few times.

A masterclass in the traditional British art of riding the volume pot.

A masterclass in the ancient musical art of adding vibrato, even!

english_bob

Friggin' love Free. Dat groove. 

Such a soulful, funky band. They don't get credit for that. While Ian Paice and Bonzo and all the other showy, jazzy rock drummers of the era were fannying around all over their kits, Simon Kirke just grooves like a motherfucker. 

cj73

Is this the answer to the 

Ways to beef up guitar when you're the only guitarist?

thread in the Live section?

RocknRollDave

I enjoyed that more than the studio versions. Live Free stuff, where to start for a newbie?

xSkarloey

@RocknRollDave

The album Free Live is as good a place as any.
really like their version of Crossroads too, where Koss plays faster than normal.

Placidcasual79

The 'riff' (I hate that word) at 17.48 is tight!!!!

I don't know this band but that bass player is ON IT!!! 

english_bob

Placidcasual79 said:

The 'riff' (I hate that word) at 17.48 is tight!!!!

I don't know this band but that bass player is ON IT!!! 

Andy Fraser (for it is he...) is a badass. He's probably about twelve years old at this point. (actually, more like 17).

Apparently he didn't even want to be a bass player- just picked the instrument that nobody else at his school wanted to play. Turned pro at 15 and co-wrote a bunch of the Free catalogue. Legend has it he may have played guitar (along with Rodgers) on their later stuff when Kossoff's drug problems made him unreliable.

cj73 said:

Is this the answer to the 

Ways to beef up guitar when you're the only guitarist?

thread in the Live section?

If the answer is "have the tightest, groovin'est rhythm section in the business" then yes. 

I love Kossoff, but without that band behind him for those songs it just wouldn't have worked. 

JezWynd

I love Andy Fraser's bass. He must have had influences but I can't hear them in his playing, he had a unique style.

FelineGuitars

english_bob said:

Placidcasual79 said:

The 'riff' (I hate that word) at 17.48 is tight!!!!

I don't know this band but that bass player is ON IT!!! 

Andy Fraser (for it is he...) is a badass. He's probably about twelve years old at this point. (actually, more like 17).

Apparently he didn't even want to be a bass player- just picked the instrument that nobody else at his school wanted to play. Turned pro at 15 and co-wrote a bunch of the Free catalogue. Legend has it he may have played guitar (along with Rodgers) on their later stuff when Kossoff's drug problems made him unreliable.

Yes - the whole band was between 18 and 21 at this time. So much taste and sophistication for that age

cj73

cj73 said:

Is this the answer to the 

Ways to beef up guitar when you're the only guitarist?

thread in the Live section?

If the answer is "have the tightest, groovin'est rhythm section in the business" then yes. 

I love Kossoff, but without that band behind him for those songs it just wouldn't have worked. 

^ Absolutely, coudn't agree more.

english_bob

JezWynd said:

I love Andy Fraser's bass. He must have had influences but I can't hear them in his playing, he had a unique style.

He says Donald "Duck" Dunn. 

http://www.tomguerra.com/fraser.htm

His earliest gigs were playing R&B and soul in West Indian clubs, and once you've heard some of the stuff Stax were putting out in the latter part of the 1960s (lots of it with Dunn on bass- he was part of the "house band") you can hear it loud and clear in Free.

He says Jack Bruce as well, but I think anyone with an interest in that sort of music at that time would have said the same.

Perhaps the most telling comment in the interview is this:

First of all, I never really considered myself a bass player. My main purpose or function in any unit was to do whatever makes the whole thing work. Whether it was with a piano, or tambourine, whatever it took was what I'd do. I was trying to what comes naturally as to anything particular. 

english_bob

FelineGuitars said: Yes - the whole band was between 18 and 21 at this time. So much taste and sophistication for that age Totally. From the interview I read, it seems that Fraser at least was a musician more than he was a player of any particular instrument.

IMO the soul influence on the band accounts for their tastefulness- soul music is all about marrying very emotional performances to very tasteful ensemble playing, which Free did impeccably.

Danny1969

There's no pedals in sight because half your average guitarists pedal board is taken up with pedals that are designed to reproduce that nice drive sound he gets with no pedals

RocknRollDave

english_bob said:

FelineGuitars said:

Yes - the whole band was between 18 and 21 at this time. So much taste and sophistication for that age

Totally. From the interview I read, it seems that Fraser at least was a musician more than he was a player of any particular instrument.

IMO the soul influence on the band accounts for their tastefulness- soul music is all about marrying very emotional performances to very tasteful ensemble playing, which Free did impeccably.

Am I correct in thinking Fraser was the one who came up with the Alright Now riff and taught Kossof how to play it?