Free
Tons Of Sobs

THE REVIEW

April 19, 1968: the birth of a legend.

Four young and rebellious boys, just blossomed in a fantastic era, in a world evolving ready for any change.

The son of a doctor on vocals, a boy from an agricultural background on drums, the son of a famous actor and a sixteen-year-old fresh from none other than Alexis Corner's band on bass.

This is the main formula, beautiful things almost always arise by chance, among simple and unknown people. Because Paul Rodgers discovered he had a warm and sensual voice during high school, when with his band Wildflowers he covered "Good Golly Miss Molly". Or Andy Fraser, a boy of humble origins who was expelled from school for refusing to cut his hair and whose mother toiled various jobs to support her children.

In short, by putting these four boys together in a studio, the group Free took shape instantly, so much so that they immediately recorded four or five pieces just composed. The cooperation in songwriting is indeed one of Free's greatest strengths: each had a totally different idea from the other which, assembled together, formed those pieces that still today surprise and drive so many people mad.

"Tons Of Sobs" is the first in a series of excellent records, and in some ways the freshest. All the songs are aggressively maximal, and the importance of the sexual revolution of those years is palpable in every note of the record. Just listen to "Wild Indian Woman", "I'm A Mover" and "Walk in My Shadow" to realize it; these two powerful blues are perhaps overly explicit, and Paul Kossoff's guitar intertwines with Fraser's phrases and Simon Kirke’s rolls in a sensual and very passionate progression. Paul Rodgers' voice is the cherry on top: still very hoarse compared to subsequent records, it can express even too well the lustful pleasure of the flesh, exploding in a sound orgasm in strong and almost erotic songs like "Worry" or "Sweet Tooth", a characteristic that asserts him as one of the sexiest voices around, even today.

The album also presents very intense and almost melancholic parts, like the sad "Moonshine", a haunting ballad set in a cemetery, where one watches over the grave of an adorable girl leaving the man all alone to mourn her death.

Intense is also one of the two covers on the record: "Goin' Down Slow" (Howlin' Wolf) is a blues slow and heartrending, where the call and response between Rodgers and Kossoff exudes pure genius, and of which the same guitarist would later say that with his riffs he expressed a deep anger against the tragedy of death.

The other cover is quite the opposite: the famous "The Hunter" by Albert King is a blues stretched to the limits of aggression, where the piano and organ played by Fraser himself provide excellent seasoning, and where Kossoff's primordial solos form the backbone of the song.

One of the most brilliant factors remains, however, the opening and closing of the album: the two "Over The Green Hills" are acoustic songs signed by Rodgers, which exalt the beauty of rough and wild nature.

"Tons Of Sobs" is an almost perfect debut, if it weren't for the immaturity of the arrangements, much more accurate in subsequent records.