Free - Heartbreaker

Released - January 1973

Genre - Blues Rock

Producer - Free & Andy Johns

Selected Personnel - Paul Rodgers (Vocals/Guitar); Paul Kossoff (Guitar); John "Rabbit" Bundrick (Backing Vocals/Keyboards); Tetsu Yamauchi (Bass); Simon Kirke (Drums/Guitar); Snuffy Walden (Guitar); Rebop Kwaku Baah (Congas)

Standout Track - Wishing Well

Free, who had ably proven themselves one of the best bands of the era for simple, gutsy blues rock with the brilliant Fire And Water back in 1970, had had mixed success since that time. Albums like Highway later the same year had produced great songs like "The Stealer," but had struggled to be as consistently great as that earlier album. As time went by it was lead guitarist Paul Kossoff who came to be the biggest danger of the band - depsite being an amazingly talented player and a key ingredient of the band's sound, his spiralling drug addiction problems meant he became increasingly unwell, unreliable and unpredictable, to the extent that his presence on the band's 1972 album Free At Last is far less discernible than usual. As a result of his increased frustration with Kossoff's unreliability, bassist and founding member Andy Fraser left late in 1972, and Tetsu Yamauchi had to be recruited to replace him. Yamauchi had been part of a short-lived collaboration named Kossoff, Kirke, Tetsu & Rabbit in late 1971 after Free's first short-lived split, after which Kossoff and Free drummer Simon Kirke formed their own band for a short while. Ultimately, the Free that recorded Heartbreaker at the end of 1972 was exactly the same of that earlier offshoot, but with the addition of the iconic vocals of Paul Rodgers, due to the fact that John "Rabbit" Bundrick was recruited on keyboards to try and compensate for the increasingly unreliable Kossoff, whose input to the record simply couldn't be what it once was.

As such, there must have been a sense of inevitability around the sessions for Heartbreaker. Even before the band knew it would be the last album they recorded together, they must have been aware of a sea change. It's a relief, then, that this final goodbye from one of the greatest rock bands of the early 70s should be as great as it is, a suitable epitaph for a great collection of talented people. The addition of Bundrick's keyboards do change the sonic landscape of the band a little and push things ever so slightly away from the back-to-basics blues rock of their earlier work and towards a more popular sound, anticipating the sound of Bad Company to come. There's also songs like the country-inflected good-time romp of "Travelling In Style" which sound unlike anything the band had done up til then but prove how adept they were not just in blues styles but looking elsewhere for inspiration too.  The majority of the album's songs were written by Rodgers on his own due to the absence of the songwriting partnership he had developed with Andy Fraser over the years, and perhaps the departure of Fraser forced Rodgers to reinvigorate his writing, as many of the songs here feel fresher than much of the material Free had released since Fire And Water. "Wishing Well," in particular (credited as a full band composition, though the validity of this isn't certain) is the most exciting song the band had produced since "All Right Now," with its swirling keyboard, thudding bass and explosive guitar squeals from Kossoff, with Rodgers bellowing its immediately unforgettable melody. It's the last true Free classic, although there are plenty of other underrated and brilliant songs on offer here.

The brilliant title track is a sort of slow, swampy blues that has all the drama and rowdiness of "Wishing Well" but in a slower, more thoughtful mode, and again showcases Rodgers at his very best vocally and gives Bundrick room to show off with a few memorable organ frills. (The song was memorably covered by Joe Bonamassa, with his Black Country Communion cohort Glen Hughes on vocals, on his Dust Bowl album in 2011). Bundrick's own compositions on the second side of the album (Kossoff himself only plays on "Seven Angels" on the album's second side, with his duties being filled in by Snuffy Walden, something Kossoff was hugely resentful of at the time) are slightly less up to the quality of Rodgers', though they still demonstrate the solid bluesy abilities of the band, while Rodgers' climactic "Seven Angels" is unusually portentous and grandiose for a Free song, and lacks the immediately iconic melodies most of their other material achieves, but is as dramatic as ever and gives Kossoff one final opportunity to show off his undeniable guitar talent.

Heartbreaker was a big success for the band, with "Wishing Well" being a particularly successful single, but an impeding American tour was impossible for them to honour their commitment to. Kossoff's drug dependency and health got worse and worse and he had to drop out of the tour and be replaced at the last minute. To the band's credit, they recognised that without Kossoff the band simply didn't feel like its old self and, rather than try to replace him and forge ahead, Free soon called it a day. Rodgers and Kirke, of course, were keen to continue working on musical projects but were aware it would have to be under a different name out of respect to Kossoff, so teamed up with former Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and former King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell to form Bad Company, who would take the simple blues template of Free and turn it into something more anthemic and stadium-suited over the years. As for Kossoff, the breakup of Free contributed even more to his depression and declining health, and he eventually passed away in 1976 at the age of just 25. It's incredible to think that somebody could achieve as much as he did in such a short time and die so tragically, and his short place in the history of rock music is a truly sad story, but in the works of Free he leaves a legacy that is a real testament to his talent and to what a towering figure the music world was robbed of.

Track Listing:

1. Wishing Well (Paul Rodgers, Simon Kirke, Tetsu Yamauchi, Paul Kossoff & John "Rabbit" Bundrick)

2. Come Together In The Morning (Paul Rodgers)

3. Travelling In Style (Paul Rodgers, Simon Kirke, Tetsu Yamauchi, Paul Kossoff & John "Rabbit" Bundrick)

4. Heartbreaker (Paul Rodgers)

5. Muddy Water (John "Rabbit" Bundrick)

6. Common Mortal Man (John "Rabbit" Bundrick)

7. Easy On My Soul (Paul Rodgers)

8. Seven Angels (Paul Rodgers)