Free at Last: The Story Of Free And Bad Company

One of the bands to emerge from the British blues boom of the 1960s, Free, with its stripped-down instrumental style, spanned the divide between artistically acceptable progressive rock and ephemeral pop music. The youthful band initially had considerable success but a combination of business inexperience and the mounting drug problems of its heroin-addicted guitarist Paul Kossof led to their split in 1973. Author Steven Rosen skilfully documents the band's internal feuding, Kossof's terminal overdose as well as Rodgers's and Kirke's formation of the successful Bad Company.