How Free’s worst gig sparked their biggest hit
While Free‘s early live shows were highly renowned, and they toured pretty much constantly, their studio albums did not sell well until the arrival of their third full-length release, Fire and Water, which arrived in 1970.
The album featured a track that would become a massive hit and is still well-known even today. The tune is ‘All Right Now’ and helped to book the English rock band a slot at the iconic Isle of Wight festival in 1970, where they played to a huge crowd of 600,000 people.
Discussing the birth of the song, Andy Fraser said, “We’d started work on our third album, Fire and Water, and things were going well. The idea for ‘All Right Now’ came about on a rainy Tuesday night in some godforsaken minor city – I can’t remember where – in England. We were playing a college that could have held 2,000 but had something like 30 people out of their heads on Mandrax bumping into each other in front of us. They didn’t notice when we came on or when we went off.”
Naturally, the gig hadn’t left Free in the best of spirits, so Fraser tried to rally the troops. He continued, “Afterwards, there was that horrible silence in the dressing room. To break the intensity, I started singing, ‘All right now…come on baby, all right now.’ As if to say, ‘Hey, tomorrow’s another day’. Everyone else started tapping along.”
The song contained one of the most memorable of the classic rock era. Noting the influence on the guitar part, Fraser said, “That riff was me trying to do my Pete Townshend. We listened to everything, though: The Beatles, Stax and Motown, Gladys Knight and The Pips was one of our main influences then.”
All that was left to do what write the rest of the lyrics. Fraser continued, “Paul [Rodgers] said he wrote the lyrics while he was waiting for us to pick him up for another gig. We used to have a dressing room amp, so every night, we’d do the song and add a bit until we tested it live.”
Rogers himself said, “When I started writing ‘All Right Now’, the lyrics and the melody flowed easily. It felt special, and it’s still special to me and the fans. It’s a ‘must play’ in my solo set.” It is a truly special song, not just for Free but for their fans too, and the band managed to turn a bad gig into a great song.
