{"id":2065,"date":"2009-03-19T07:34:20","date_gmt":"2009-03-19T11:34:20","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-03-19T09:51:21","modified_gmt":"2009-03-19T09:51:21","slug":"precursor-bands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/precursor-bands\/","title":{"rendered":"Precursor Bands You Have Trouble Believing Are Much Better Than the Better Known Band That Followed in Their Wake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beside the FM staple &#8220;All Right Now&#8221; I don&#8217;t know if I could identify a song by <strong>Free<\/strong>, the precursor to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/07\/15\/which-band-reduced-rock-n-roll\">Bad Company<\/a><\/strong>, featuring RTH Foyer of Fame presenter <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/03\/10\/rth_exclusive_paul_rodgers_seger_inducti\">Paul Rodgers<\/a><\/strong>, Simon Kirke, Paul Kossoff, and some bassist (Andy Fraser) a lot of British bassists I dig grew up digging themselves. If I only heard another Free song being played I&#8217;d probably think it was a half-decent Bad Company song. Actually, if any of these Free clips were shown to me untitled I could be convinced that this was Bad Co Beside Simon Kirke&#8217;s bangs, did anyone in either band have a distinctive Look that might set them apart from any actor in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2009\/02\/12\/films_that_don_t_rock_da_blooz_exorcist_\">Almost Famous<\/a><\/em>?<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/leGAYNe2UzU?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nI&#8217;m not one of those guys who hates Bad Company. In the dog days of late-70s FM <em>RAWK<\/em> Bad Co could be counted on for some decent guitar riffs, a lot of macho posturing, a minimum of frills, and unintentionally funny lyrics. They were the epitome of Rock at its most mediocre.<\/p>\n<p>Even back then, however, any critical insult dumped on Bad Co was often followed by props for their precursor band, Free. As I said, the only song I&#8217;d ever heard then and the only song I am aware of as being a song by Free to this day is &#8220;All Right Now.&#8221; I never trusted that Free would be much better than the best of Bad Company. Really, after 30 years of skepticism, am I really going to learn anything from a Free record that I haven&#8217;t already figured out from a Bad Company record? Will that bass player, Andy Fraser, the one who XTC&#8217;s <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/chalkhills.org\/articles\/GuitarAndBass0505.html\" target=\"_blank\">Colin Moulding<\/a><\/strong>, for instance, has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mikevisceglia.com\/colinm.html\" target=\"_blank\">raved about in interviews<\/a>, help turn me onto a Free record like no Bad Company record has ever turned me on?<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GIeglX2HOSo?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p><strong>Is there some other precursor band that you&#8217;ve been skeptical of over the years before really ever hearing?<\/strong><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xggFzkyd288?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>I look forward to your responses.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beside the FM staple &#8220;All Right Now&#8221; I don&#8217;t know if I could identify a song by Free, the precursor to Bad Company, featuring RTH Foyer of Fame presenter Paul Rodgers, Simon Kirke, Paul Kossoff, and some bassist (Andy Fraser) a lot of British bassists I dig grew up digging themselves. If I only heard <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/precursor-bands\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[79],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}