Voicemail for the request line is:  646-504-6144    **It has recently changed**

This broadcast continues our journey to the Rockin’ Seventies….

Free – 1970.08.29 – Isle of Wight Festival [SBD]

Free was an English rock band formed in London in 1968 by Paul Rodgers (lead vocals), Paul Kossoff (lead guitar), Andy Fraser (bass), and Simon Kirke (drums).  They disbanded in 1973, and Rodgers became the frontman of Bad Company along with Kirke.  Kossoff formed Back Street Crawler and passed away from a drug-induced cardiac arrest.  Fraser went on to form Sharks.  When they played their first gig on 19 Apr 1968, Fraser was 15, Kossoff was 17, and Rodgers and Kirke were both 18.  They were best known for their 1970 hit song “All Right Now“.  This hit, from the Fire and Water album, helped to secure them a spot at the huge Isle of Wight Festival, playing to 600,000 people.  This bootleg actually contains boththe Isle of Wight and Stockholm concerts from 1970, but we will only hear the IOW concert.  We may hear the other one at a later date, though.  Rolling Stone magazine has referred to the band as “British hard rock pioneers”.  They ranked Rodgers as 55 in its list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”, and Kossoff received 51st place in the list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”.

Uriah Heep – 1974-02-08 – San Diego, CA [KBFH-FM]

When they were at their most popular circa 1974, when this concert was recorded for the King Biscuit Flower Hour, Uriah Heep was consistently selling out large theaters and mid-sized arena.  This show, recorded in San Diego, was captured in one of the band’s strongest U.S. markets.  Presenting a radio friendly blend of hard rock and British progressive rock, the Heep (as they were called) had become a rock ‘n’ roll mainstay on FM stations across the U.S. with songs like Easy Livin’, Stealin’, and July Morning.  These songs, and others, make up this concert, which is really a greatest hits collection recorded live.  Featuring the classic Heep lineup of Mick Box (guitar), Ken Hensley (keyboards), Gary Thain (bass), Lee Kerslake (drums) and David Byron (lead vocals), this show features the career music of a band that saw considerable commercial success, but never crossed over to the big league like other bands from that era like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, ELP, The Who, and the Rolling Stones.  The band was hated almost totally by rock critics, who had to later eat their words when they released five gold albums in the U.S. Top 40 between 1972 and 1975.

Canned Heat – 1972-02-22 – WBCN Studios, Boston, MA [FM]

Canned Heat is an American blues/boogie rock band formed in Los Angeles, CA in 1965 by two blues enthusiasts, Alan Wilson and Bob Hite, who took the name from Tommy Johnson’s 1928 “Canned Heat Blues”.  The song was about an alcoholic who had turned to drinking Sterno, generically called “canned heat”.  After appearances at the Monterey and Woodstock festivals at the end of the 1960s, the band acquired worldwide fame.  Their lineup at that time was Bob Hite (vocals), Alan Wilson (guitar, harmonica, and vocals), Henry Vestine (and later, Harvey Mandel – lead guitar), Larry Taylor (bass), and Adolfo de la Parra (drums).  Since the early 1970s, numerous personnel changes have occurred and today, in the fifth decade of its existence, the band includes all three of the surviving classic lineup members: Mandel, Taylor and de la Parra (who has been in the band since joining in 1967).  Mandel, Walter Trout and Junior Watson are among the guitarists who gained fame for playing in later editions of the band.  This FM bootleg, finds Canned Heat in the WBCN-FM studios in Boston, MA, and is a very good jam session.