Unknown Soldier

The Album
Often seen as a token commercial venture by the record company, after the much maligned Free finally split in April 1971 (even though the split would be short-lived) The band had split primarily due to the growing antagonism between song-writers Paul Rodgers and Andy Fraser, who along with Paul Kossoff’s severe heroin addiction brought the mechanics of the band to a virtual standstill. But the final straw must have been their poorly received fourth album Highway released at the tail end of 1970, which had been seen as a huge flop at the time! This live album was recorded from various UK locations throughout 1970 and on its initial release, it only featured eight tracks falling short of what was actually recorded by producer Andy Johns. This was a common occurrence with some live albums of the 1970s, where the record company was looking to cash-in rather than giving out value for money, just think of the initial release of Cheap Trick’s At Budoken as a perfect example, this Free album got a long awaited re-issue in 2002. This recording by Free captures a band, that excelled like the previous entry in this section Grand Funk Railroad in a live environment. As I’ve mentioned several times, the heavy blues interpretation of Free was quite distinct to how Led Zeppelin translated it. Free always put melody first and just used a heavy feel to give depth to proceedings and were always focused on a balanced execution rather than blitzing the audience! There are mixed reviews of this album and like any of these patchily put together live albums of the time, it can be all hit and miss, but I think this is a great example of the band live. The material covers their first four studio albums, two of which Tons of Sobs and Fire and Water have featured on my main “Top Ten Lists” whilst the other two albums Free (none on the original release of this album) and Highway were on my “Albums That Missed the Cut…..” section.

Paul Rodgers- Vocals
Paul Kossoff- Guitar
Andy Fraser- Bass
Simon Kirke- Drums

Production- Andy Johns
Sunderland and Croydon 1970

There was no decent recordings of this album, so just used other live recordings from the time.

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