Track Listing

1. Fire and Water
2. Oh I Wept
3. Remember
4. Heavy Load
5. Mr. Big
6. Don't Say You Love Me
7. All Right Now

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13997 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Customer Reviews

All right now -- this is a classic
Free's one true gem "Fire and Water" is also one of the best hard rock albums of the early 1970s, raking along with "The James Gang Rides Again" and Deep Purple's "Machine Head." And this is not just because their biggest hit, "All Right Now," appears on the album. The songs are uniformly excellent, though such cuts as "Mr. Big," "Do You Remember," and "Don't Say You Love Me" really stand out. It is too bad that lead singer Paul Rodgers's subsequent band, Bad Company, could never achieve this level of mastery.

Incandescent Bloozerock Minimalism
Free was nothing if not the proof that less is more; what distinguished them from their bloozerocking peers was the point that they didn't need to shove themselves into overdrive to make their point. Minimalists in the best sense of the word, they set a legitimately funky rhythm section behind the strikingly simple but gripping guitar playing of the late Paul Kossoff and the thrusting vocals of Paul Rodgers and delivered as singular a hard bloozerock attack as could be found during their brief but bristling existence.

"Fire and Water" was their best selling album and still the album on which their reputation rests (though the predecessor, "Free," was no less effective). The title track impressed Wilson Pickett enough to make a striking soul hit out of it. And "All Right Now" remains a masterpiece of pure rocking R and B fire; never mind Rodgers's only too classic lyric of predatory obsession-compulsion (so he doesn't get the girl in the sack, she's too smart to fall for his jive, but you know damn well it isn't going to stop him from hunting fresh prey and probably landing one less gullible), the chunky verse playing is relentless, and that classic midsection, piano and bass nudging Kossoff to his most memorably melodious solo (that's saying something considering his consistency), is impossible to resist. The album cut has long since buried the hit single version (which contained a different rhythm guitar sound, shortened up that midsection a little bit, and eliminated the second verse coda entirely; it's available on the new anthology of the band, and it's worthy in its own right), and you probably know a few dozen "classic rock" bar bands who give it a whirl at least once a night and get a guaranteed round of applause with it after they've cranked out a little Bad Company to whet the appetite a bit.

Bad Company, in fact, seems to have forged a career out of trying to recapture that lightning and exercising the frustration involved when they see it but don't quite capture it. Though they outpointed Free for commercial endurance, they never really did get their hands around "Fire and Water"'s lightning long enough, notwithstanding that ("Straight Shooter," especially) it was occasionally fun to hear them try. Essentially, Bad Company was Free if you imagined the band merely replacing Kossoff and bassist Andy Fraser with former Mott the Hoopler Mick Ralphs (who lacked Kossoff's subtleties) and former King Crimsonite Boz Burrell (who rumbled where Fraser would have rocked) and turning their elemental flame into arena rock cliche (though Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke never really did lose their hop), but they only serve to make Free look that much better in retrospect.

Fantastic British Blues
This is one of the all time classic British Blues Albums. "Alright Now" is only a culminating incidental to this recording. A grinding rythem guitar sound coupled with solid bass and drums underlays the meaningful and soulful vocals. Transferring a ton of emotional energy, the lead guitar work just sings on its own almost negating the necessity of even words to the songs. It is rare when lead guitar work sets a mood changing a song into a tapestry of tone poems. I love every song on the recording.

Becareful not to think that this band is a just a precursor to Bad Company. This band had it's own life. I feel that this recording is a necessary part of any classic rock collection.