Free: Tons of Sobs [ISLAND]

Why you'll love it

This EU reissue puts the album on 180g vinyl in a gatefold jacket with a download code. Tons of Sobs is the band's purest blues record and gave them their first hit, "I'm a Mover."

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Download card included
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Free were barely old enough to drive when they made this. Every member was a teenager, and bassist Andy Fraser was 16. They'd built a following through constant gigging, so when Chris Blackwell signed them to Island and hired Guy Stevens to produce, the plan was simple: put the live set on tape, quickly and cheaply.

Most of it went down over a few days in October 1968, and Stevens kept the production lean, which suits the band down to the ground. Paul Rodgers sings like a man twice his age, Paul Kossoff's guitar weeps and stings, and Fraser and drummer Simon Kirke keep it loose and heavy. "Worry" and "Walk in My Shadow" stomp, the eight-minute "Goin' Down Slow" is a slow-burn showcase, "I'm a Mover" swaggers, and "The Hunter," added in December at Stevens's insistence, became a live favourite for years. "Over the Green Hills" bookends the whole thing.

Within a couple of years they were stars, and many of these songs stayed in the set long after. The whole album cost about £800, which these days would cover the shipping on a few boxes of reissues.

Also at Kops: more Free on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Island (cat# 473 181-6), a reissue of the 1969 album.