Free
Formed in London in 1968 by teenagers Paul Rodgers, Paul Kossoff, Andy Fraser, and Simon Kirke, Free stripped blues-rock down to its bones: a spare rhythm section, Kossoff's vibrato-drenched, economical lead guitar, and Rodgers' soul-schooled voice, with nowhere for a weak idea to hide. Their 1970 single "All Right Now" turned them into stars almost overnight, and the parent album Fire and Water distilled the quartet's dynamic push-and-pull into a blueprint hard rock bands would chase for years. Internal friction and Kossoff's worsening drug addiction broke the band apart by 1973, but its four members shaped much of what followed in British blues-rock and hard rock.
Kossoff and Rodgers reportedly wore out Albert King's Born Under a Bad Sign together, joking that between the two of them they made one Albert King; King's wide, aggressive string bends over a spare rhythm section are a direct model for Free's own minimalist blues-rock guitar attack.
listen forBig, deliberate string bends left to hang in open space, with long pauses between phrases instead of constant playing.
Kossoff worked his way from Clapton and Peter Green to "the three Kings," and he and Rodgers reportedly studied B.B. King's Live at the Regal closely, taking King's sustained, singing vibrato as a model for Kossoff's own less-is-more lead style.
listen forA single note held and shaken with a fast, vocal-like vibrato rather than strung together into a fast run — the guitar "singing" the way King's did.
Simon Kirke recalled that he and Kossoff had been listening hard to Elmore James' slide guitar; Free's rhythm-guitar drive on their uptempo blues numbers channels that same raw, hard-charging intensity even without the slide itself.
listen forThe urgent, driving push of the rhythm guitar under an uptempo blues groove, distorted and insistent rather than clean.