Free’s Andy Fraser – a man of tone and taste

Tämän jutun alkuperäinen suomenkielinen versio löytyy TÄÄLTÄ.

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In 1970 it looked very much like the band Free would become the ”next big thing”. The band was talked about in the music press as the ”new Rolling Stones” and the ”next Led Zeppelin”.

Free (left to right): Paul Kossoff (guitar) and Simon Kirke (drums) – standing; Paul Rodgers (vocals, keyboards) and Andy Fraser (bass guitar, piano) – sitting; *** CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikipedia; Simon Kirke ***

Free’s third LP ”Fire and Water”, and especially their single ”All Right Now, were smash hits, and the band played the Isle of Wight Festival to great success. Their musical mix was very enticing:

Singer Paul Rodgers had (and still has) a magnificently soulful voice that’s just made for Blues Rock. Drummer Simon Kirke followed a strict ”less is more” approach, which was very rare among his peers in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Paul ”Koss” Kossoff’s ability to wring every last drop of raw emotion from his guitar quickly turned him into a bona fide Gibson Les Paul-hero. Despite his tender age of only 18 years, bassist Andy Fraser was the man behind the majority of Free’s songs; his tasteful playing and fat tone glued the band’s arrangements together.

*** CC0; Wikipedia; Nationaal Archief NL ***

Sadly, Free’s story came to a premature end. Their follow-up records didn’t measure up to the success of ”All Right Now”, and the band started looking increasingly rudderless and without a clear musical outlook. Adding to this, Paul Kossoff descended further and further into alcohol and drug dependency, making the situation ever harder to bear for his bandmates. After a few starts and stops Free finally broke up in 1973.

Rodgers and Kirke started the band Bad Company, which found greater success and had a much longer run. Kossoff, too, started his own band, called Back Street Crawlers. Sadly, Koss Kossoff died from a lung embolism at only 26 years old in 1976 during a flight from Los Angeles to New York City.

Andy Fraser tried to continue his success in a number of different line-ups, but finally moved to the USA in 1976, and started concentrating on songwriting. Robert Palmer’s hit single ”Every Kinda People” is a fine example of Fraser’s post-Free output. Fraser died in 2015 from a heart attack; he was only 62.

Andy Fraser’s ”less is more”-approach to bass playing

In a way, it seems that many people have forgotten to include Andy Fraser in the list of all-time great bassists, despite the fact that most of his basslines were vitally important to Free’s songs and arrangements.

Despite his youth, Fraser never overplayed. He could be very fast and flashy, when required – listen to the bass solo in the song ”Mr. Big”, for example – but most of the time he deliberately held back to make Paul Rodgers’ voice and Koss Kossoff’s guitar playing shine. Andy Fraser thought more like an arranger than like a bassist, always looking for the best way to serve the song.

One of the best examples of Fraser’s approach is the main riff/vamp on the song ”Mr. Big”. The sparse drum pattern is interlocked with Fraser’s bassline and Kossoff’s guitar stabs. Although this song is relatively slow (82 BPM) the musical backing approaches you like a relentless mechanical beast.

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In Free’s all-time classic ”All Right Now” Andy Fraser doesn’t even play in the verses, joining the band only for the choruses and (the end of) the guitar solo.

When the ”Fire and Water” LP was released, Island Records chose ”All Right Now” as the obvious single. Island felt, though, that the song was too long in its album form, and they also wanted a deeper, more radio-friendly bassline. This is why the single version edits out the first part of the original guitar solo, and also why the bass parts in the choruses differ from the LP version. Andy Fraser recorded a new bass part, one octave down from the original recording, and the record company was satisfied.

Here are both versions of the first chorus:

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Andy Fraser plays an interesting vamp over the latter part of the guitar solo, which is included in both the album and single versions. The vamp starts off with a low motif over an A-major chord, before jumping way up high over the G- and D-chords. He actually plays the high notes together with the open A-string on his bass, but I’ve simplified this for the notation.

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Andy Fraser achieved his fat mid-range-centred sound by playing a short-scale Gibson EB-3 bass, that sports a huge humbucker next to the fretboard and a mini-humbucker by the bridge. Some call this model the ”SG Bass”. I’ve used my inexpensive Epiphone EB-0 for the audio clips.

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