Free: It’s All Right (to like them) now
I have a recurring nightmare: One day.. I find myself at the Albert Hall ..in a corporate hospitality box..watching Eric Clapton and I’m really really enjoying it.
Nothing against Eric. He’s a wonderful man, who does a lot for charity. But I’m afraid he’s inextricably linked with what I find to he the very worst sort of middle aged music fan, and therefore has to be avoided on principle [it’s ok to like the Yardbirds…but you have to say, they were better with Jimmy Page…which incidentally doesn’t mean you can suddenly get into Robert Plant…as he has similar Clapton-like connotations].
This fear drives me away from all sorts of music. Generally the type that involved a lot of hair first time round. And, I’m afraid, Free have always fallen in to that category.
How many Free tracks can you name? OK, if you know you’re stuff I’m sure you can run through the whole story but for most of us, it starts and stops with All Right Now, which is a great song but let’s be honest, it’s completely Smashy and Nicey.
About a year ago, however, I got hold of a cheap copy of Stuck In The Middle - a quite wonderful, if rather random (Buggles, Boomtown Rats, Status Quo, Steelers Wheel) collection of videos from the 70s, which included some mesmerising live footage of All Right Now. I watched that clip about 10 times on the trot. Completely messy, louche rock and roll: all over the place - in the very best possibly way.
Since then, we’ve had Kings of Leon, and Jet and in fact, quite a lot of noisy, hairy guitar stuff. Hence my natural resistance to Free has been gradually whittled away.
So there’s been a two CD, Free ‘best of’ released this month called Chronicles. Thanks to the anonymity of the net, I was able to order it without anyone noticing. But I’m finally prepared to out myself. I love it. I can honestly say, it completely rocks in a quite brilliant, bluesy, completely un-reconstructed way.
I wish they’d left ‘All Right Now’ off - because it brings the whole thing back to work Xmas discos, but oh yes, it’s good. If you’re like me and you’ve refused to dabble with this sort of stuff out of principle - I suggest you sneakily buy a copy and take a listen. I’m not saying you should suddenly go all rock god, I suppose all I am saying, is give Free a chance.
However, I see problems on the horizon. There is a Cream re-release on its way. I fear I might like it. I must resist. Help please - I’m sure we can fight this together.