Happy Birthday Paul Rodgers

Funny how we were talking about Bad Company that it came to my attention that this Saturday, Mr. Rodgers turned 62 years young today and can still sing with the rest of the young whippersnappers out there.  From his days with Free to Bad Company to The Firm, The Law and Queen you can pretty much say he's done it all.  From the overplayed (All Right Now, Can't Get Enough) to the lesser known Rodgers has been my favorite all time rock vocalist.  I even made a old cassette mixtape of his best stuff.  It's hard to do a complete 10 best, far too many great songs with him on it but I'll give you a little indication of my favorite moments of Paul Rodgers and his track history.

1.  The Hunter (Ton Of Sobs)  The year was 1969 I think and Free was about to get their foot into the door of rock and roll.  Their first album was produced by Guy Stevens (Mott The Hoople, Clash fame).  Free most of the time was a lot more slower and plodding blues than Bad Company was but still with the bash of Kirke's drums, Paul Kossoff's screaming lead guitar and Andy Fraser's thumping bass they do justice to the Albert King classic.  The studio is sloppy fun but FM radio played the live version a lot more.

2.  Wishing Well  (Heartbreaker)  To me the best Free album wasn't Fire And Water but rather their 1973 farewell Heartbreaker, played by a band that was tearing apart at the edges.  Kossoff wasn't well half the time and Fraser had departed, so it was Rodgers to carry on with Kirke in band and John Bundrick on keyboards and a Japanese bass player in Tesui.  Credit Andy Johns for that foreboding sound and Rodgers vocals to which may have been written for Paul Kossoff's drug problems.  Got played a lot on FM radio too although it was released as a single.  Never found it but I did find the followup Travelin In Style on 45.

3.  Easy On My Soul (Heartbreaker)  Very un Free like, mostly keyboard driven and sounding more closer to Moody Blues than actual blues, this probably is my favorite track off Heartbreaker.  Even though Simon Kirke does play a bit of sloppy drums on this song, it is sloppy fun.   Later redone as Bad Company as a more blues driven sound but only made it to the B Side of Movin On (later on The Bad Company Anthology).

4.  Don't Let Me Down (Bad Company)   In terms of classic rock, Bad Company's first album remains their best and every track is very good and radio ready with the exception of The Way I Choose, which was so so at best and hardly anybody plays or mentions it.  This was an album cut (no single) but it got plenty of radio play back in the 70s although Cumulus Radio forbids their stations of playing it.  Another slow ballad but it benefits for Sue And Sunny sweet backing vocals and guest star Mel Collins' sax playing with compliments Mick Ralphs lead.

5.  Honey Child (Running With The Pack)  Bad Company enjoyed some great singles along the way and as you can tell I like the lesser known better than the hits since they don't get played much.  This was one of them, off RWTP, you heard it all before in different versions but hey I don't care.  Couldn't find the single so had to buy the album (eventually I did find the 45 years later, in Arizona of course).

6.  Gone Gone Gone (Desolation Angels)  What make Paul Rodgers so great was that he can make an average song sound so much better and this one was written by Boz Burrell.  Follow up single to Rock And Roll Fantasy.  Believe it or not The FOX actually played this song a few times this year.  Cumulus Radio ain't going to like that, play the overplayed or ELSE.

7.  Electricland (Rough Diamonds)  The worst Bad Company album with Rodgers was that the majority of songs off that album were boring.  It took them 3 years to follow up Angels with this?  No wonder they decided to take a break.  But this is one of Rodgers' finest songs ever and it did chart somewhere in the top 100.  And for some reason Elektra decided not to include this on the 2 CD Anthology which I say buyer beware.

8.  Closer (The Firm)  Perhaps a change in scenery and bands would help Paul.  After all he got Jimmy Page on guitar.  Which probably meant they were doomed to fail since expectations were high.  Radioactive was the hit but it seems to me that the lyrics were just thrown together, still I play it though.  Perhaps the star of this band was neither Paul or Jimmy but Tony Franklin who plays fretless bass and could do a good Jaco Pactorius.

9.  Tear Down The Walls (Mean Business)  Don't know about you but I like Mean Business better than I did the first album.  I guess Atlantic did issue this as a single but never seen it before, but there was a video for it and MTV played it about a couple times.  My favorite track off this album.

10.  Seagull (Bad Company)  It ends the album on a beautiful and nice acoustic note and over the years Rodgers have performed this solo or with Bad Company to which he does a good version on the latest Live Bad Company CD that came out on the budget Sony Extended Versions loss leader.  You can tell Rodgers got the groove when he continues to strum and sings to the end.  It doesn't get any better than that.

There's so many great songs out there done by Paul and everybody has their favorite.  These are mine.