Paul Rodgers turns 75 today.
It is hard to overstate how much Paul’s voice and Bad Company’s sound connected with partying, hormone-heavy, long-haired teenage boys in the mid-70s. It was like our feelings were wrapped in slightly less-than-heavy music and coupled with what we were thinking flowing from one of the best-ever, soulful rock voices. We were ready to make a deal with the preacher for love; knew all about good lovin’ gone bad and wild fire women; wanted someone to turn on their light, stay with us a while and rock steady; and daydreamed about being a shooting star and making the big time at last.
Zeppelin was king but that was different. We had no illusions we could be them. Plant was this golden god with his blonde mane, six foot ripped physique, and banshee wail; Bonham was the most thunderous drummer on earth; Jones seemed to be able to expertly play every stringed and keyboard instrument imaginable; and Page was a freakin’ wizard. Bad Company, on the other hand, had no virtuosos. Ralphs was a solid but unremarkable guitarist; Simon and Boz were similarly solid but unremarkable. They weren’t writing poetry about a gentle race the world had seldom seen who talked of days for which they sit and wait for all to be revealed. No, they wrote come on and do it because I can’t get enough of your love and moving on from town to town. I could write that. And Paul was my size. They just weren’t far removed from where we were in life.
For those of you who only know Paul from the Bad Compamy years, he cut his teeth in a very good British band, Free. They released a few gems like Fire and Water, Wishing Well, Mr. Big, and All Right Now. After Jim Morrison died the remaining Doors wanted to recruit Paul, and Robbie Krieger even flew to England to find him and offer him the position, but the meeting never materialized. Deep Purple also offered Paul the lead vocalist position after Ian Gillan left, but Paul decided to form his own band instead. Glad he did.
Bad Company was where Paul’s talents really flowered. Those first two albums were like textbooks of teenage dreams and angst. Paul would go on later to team up with Jimmy Page in The Firm and perform as lead singer of Queen, but his candle never burned as brightly. Creative genius tends to lose its edge, uniqueness and brilliance with the three-headed distractions of money, success and fame. Like most artists, Paul’s earlier material contained a higher killer-to-filler ratio than later works.
(As an aside, a few years back there was a very good show called Mozart in the Jungle and Lola Kirke, the daughter of Bad Company’s drummer, starred in it.)
Happy birthday to a guy with one of the best rock voices of all time who graced us not once but twice on Rock Legends Cruises.
