These are indeed strange times. I hope everyone is
keeping safe and well.
Here the FAS continues to work on the 50th
anniversary celebrations going forwards. I have been hard at work on the 'Fire And Water'
issues since Christmas Day 2019 and the first two are 80% done, the final issue
erm.... less than that! Maybe 20%. It's all very complicated this part of the
history! There are things in the next magazines that even surprised me! Things
even I hadn't realised or known about. Quite an adventure.
Due to the current situation I can't be sure EXACTLY
when we'll be getting these next issues printed - but in the meantime work will continue unabated to get them ready
to go as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
However, today is actually quite important. 50 years
ago today something happened that changed the lives of Paul Kossoff, Paul
Rodgers, Simon Kirke and Andy Fraser forever. Somewhat changing the fortunes of
the already bludgeoning Island Records label too.
On April 21st, 1970 at Island Studios in Basing
Street, Chris Blackwell took out the master multi-track reels for Free's 'All
Right Now'. He remixed the track and edited it as their proposed third UK
single. Of course the first two, 'Broad Daylight' and 'I'll Be
Creeping' hadn't broken any sales records, but things were building up and
there was a feeling that Free were about to break really big. They just needed
one key song, and Chris Blackwell decided that this was it.
Along with engineers Brian Humphries and Roger
(Trow, I think) he took the masters, which had been transferred to 16-track
from the original 8-track tapes recorded at Trident Studios, and spliced out
the introduction to the guitar solo, and the last verse. He thickened up the
track with some overdubs and a cowbell (on the album mix this is missing) and
took the song from its original length of 5.31 down to 4.14 - still long for a single it has to be said. On reflection these
days Chris believes it could have been even better, but that he just couldn't get
it better than this himself. I think he did pretty good personally.
A couple of weeks later it was in the shops and by
July it was sitting at No.2 in the BBC chart, or No.1 if you preferred to take
your information from the NME or Melody Maker. The rest, as they say, is
history. The single was a hit in the UK, USA, Denmark, Canada, Germany, France,
Belgium, Denmark among others, as well as being released in places like South
Africa, Yugoslavia, Israel, Japan, Greece, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and even the
Lebanon!
And despite Wikipedia having down on its pages that the song was
written in Durham, it wasn't. It was actually conceived in Manchester apparently. This
comes from what the band said, on numerous occasions, in the music press at the time it was released.
You can say in no uncertain terms that this day,
half a century ago, changed their lives forever. Those four young men, Fraser
still only 17. And, if you are a fan, like me, ours too. Cool eh. History was
never like this at school was it!
Keep Safe,
David
Right: FREE
'Esta Bien Ahora'
('All Right Now')
Argentina [Philips]
