Rodgers that

In all the late-60s-English-blues-guitar-god listening I’ve been doing lately, I’ve taken a real fancy to Free. I’m drawn to both Paul Rodgers tasty, cooler-Rod-Stewart vocals and Paul Kossoff’s tasty Les Paul guitar tones. (Though he is also named Paul, Paul McCartney does not enter into the picture, though Pauline Kael might.) Free had, true to their name, a nice looseness that Bad Company lacked. And although Free had a big following, the songs on “Fire and Water” have a quiet intimacy–they would come across better in a small club than a stadium. “Cooler Rod Stewart?” you ask. No, it’s not a joke; I’m thinking of Rod in the “Jeff Beck Group” era, before he blew all his blues rock cred with those horrible multi-platinum albums in the mid 70s. Pagey formed Led Zepplin as his New Yardbirds (with John Paul Jones on bass). How much less ridiculous would Zep had been if Rod was its singer. As he was in Jeff Beck’s own version of the New Yardbirds. Well, you can compare them directly since both groups did “You Shook Me” on their first album. Personally, I prefer Stewart to Plant. Gasp! Here’s more fantasy football, what if Rodgers had been the singer for Zep? Would it sound anything like “The Firm”, the group that Page and Rodgers eventually formed together in the 80s? Don’t know, never heard them. Any comments here?

Where am I going with all this? Ah, grasshopper, always impatient. When Zep formed their vanity label, Swan Song, Bad Company was the first act they signed. Their other big act was the group that Paul Rodgers is now touring with, and of course I’m talking about Queen. And now you know… The rest of the story!