Customer Reviews

Highway

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

HIGHWAY should have been the follow-up album, after FIRE AND WATER, to make FREE the superstars they were destined to be. The recording sessions that produced HIGHWAY were among the easiest and most confident of Free's recording career. HIGHWAY, released in December of 1970, reached only #41 in the UK and #190 in America (compared to #2 and #17, respectively, for FIRE AND WATER). Although FREE were at the height of their fame having had an international smash hit with ALL RIGHT NOW. Highway's Recording Engineer, Andy Johns, said he knew the album was doomed as soon as he saw the pallid record sleeve with no conspicuous display of Free's name. It was further reported that reviewers and disc jockeys were saying things like "... good band this Highway, they sound amazingly like Free".

There's a pair of strutting sexy songs, RIDE ON A PONY and THE STEALER, which competed for the role of follow-up to ALL RIGHT NOW. THE STEALER, sporting lyrics "I'm the stealer, come to steal your love", failed to even enter the UK Top 75 and a few weeks later it stalled at #49 in America.

There were three weighty love songs, LOVE YOU SO, SOON I WILL BE GONE, and BE MY FRIEND, that captured Free's established approach to romance as serious business. BE MY FRIEND was actually described by Paul Kossoff as "the best thing we've ever done", a statement that this writer agrees with. The song is absolutely wonderful.

There were three mellow, more typical Free, songs in ON MY WAY, SUNNY DAY, and BODIE.

The opening track, THE HIGHWAY SONG, is a piano-and-drums-led shuffle with an improbably agrarian storyline evident to the lighter tread and sinuous polyrhythms of The Band's Music From Big Pink influences on Rodgers and Kossoff.

History emerges with no account of the startling commercial failure of Free's HIGHWAY album. The music it contains should have made them superstars. Instead, Free began their descent down the road of destruction and ruin that would break up the band and ultimately lead to the drug induced death of one of Rock's greatest guitarists, Paul Kossoff.

Only now, we have posterity and here we are.

The additional tracks, MY BROTHER JAKE and ONLY MY SOUL, are welcome additions to the HIGHWAY line-up, as are the BBC performances of RIDE ON A PONY and BE MY FRIEND. MY BROTHER JAKE was a mono single released in April 1971 which made #4 in the UK charts. Additional track 14, RAIN, is another take on the song which first appeared on the box set SONGS OF YESTERDAY and is previously unreleased, until now. Remastering was performed at Abbey Road by Peter Mew, and is excellent!

RECOMMENDATION:
5 STARS ALL THE WAY!
The time has come to appreciate HIGHWAY the way it should have been appreciated in 1971.

I was just 14 when "All Right Now" was playing. It was my favorite song. After I started to hear songs from Highway, Free was my favorite group. "The Stealer" has to be one of the best songs I've ever heard, the words and sound are erotic, "I said, hey good lookin won't you come with me. She said yeah, I'm the stealer, come to steal your love". "Bodie", "Soon I will be gone", these songs have got style and Paul Rodgers sings them as well as anyone could. I was surprised to find this CD, had to be luck. I've had it about 10 or 12 years. I plan to always have it. Songs like "The Stealer" can definitely turn a person on to rock & roll. I know exactly what the other reviewer means. I was in a Best Buy once and this CD was in the "Highway" section, a non-existent group. I dutifully took it and put it in the "Free" section. In a way its sad, I remember listening to the radio on school nights waiting for "The Stealer" to come on and remember how great it sounded, now some people don't know the name of the album from the group.

One theory has the initial poor sales of this album blamed on the fact that the name "Free" did not appear on the front cover( although that did not seem to affect sales of Led Zeppelin 4) but whatever the reason there is now no excuse for not owning this wonderful disc. At their best Free were a group who went beyond the music and into the emotions of the songs.The sonwriting team of Paul Rogers and Andy Fraser were simply one of the best ever to come out of England.
Emerging from the English blues boom to develop a style unlike any other,from the blues - rock sound of "the stealer" to the delicate jazzy blues of "be my friend" ,Free were four young guys on a mission.With the added tracks this disc is great value and deserves a place in any collection.

This in My opinion is my favorite of the free albums , All the songs are fantastic, and the bbc cuts are great.

UNDERRATED BAND, UNDERRATED MUSIC. I ENJOYED THIS CD AS MUCH AS ANY I'VE PURCHASED RECENTLY. THEIR RYTHEM SECTION WAS GREAT, PAUL RODGERS VOCALS ARE TOP NOTCH, BUT WHAT ABOUT PAUL KOSSOFF.... THE DUDE WAS AWESOME !! THIS BAND COULD ROCK, BUT THEY ALSO DID A GREAT JOB OF PLAYING MELLOW MUSIC OR BALLADS WITHOUT KILLING THE ROCK FEEL. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS CD TO ANYONE WHO ENJOYS GOOD TASTEFUL MUSIC. GET IT, YOU WON'T REGRET IT, IN FACT GET AS MUCH OF "FREE" AS YOU CAN, BECAUSE IT IS WORTH IT. ENJOY.

"Highway" like a lot of albums from 1970-71 showed the influence of The Band and Free incorporated that influence into their blues-rock mix with songwriters Andy Frasier and Paul Rodgers producing some of their best material here.

The nice thing about this reissue are the bonus tracks. We get the seminal single "My Brother Jake"/"Only My Soul" as well as two BBC recordings "Ride On A Pony" & "Be My Friend". Rounding things out is an alternate mix of "Rain" (which was on the out-of-print boxed set)and the single mix of "The Stealer" and you've got an exceptional reissue.

The album sounds pretty good considering that No Noise was used (luckily it doesn't suck ALL the life out of the album)and remastering engineer Peter Mew does a good job of making sure that the album isn't too loud or compressed so for a more modern remaster this sounds pretty darn good and it is the only place you can get all of the bonus tracks at this time. If you can find a decent sounding first CD pressing you'll probably do better off on the sound but you won't get the bonus tracks.

After this we got the Free live album, the band broke up only to regroup for "Free at Last" a good last gasp from the original line up. Guitarist Paul Kossoff spiraled further into drug abuse which ultimately ripped the second line up of Free (without Andy Fraiser who was sorely missed)apart.

A lot of people thought this album was by a band named "Highway" when this was first released. The first impression was "man this band sounds a lot like Free". In fact I was in a bricks and mortar store the other day and found this, yep, listed under "Highway" for the band name. The band hated the cover and the fact that it didn't say their name on it and when it came out co-producer Andy Johns pointed out that the lack of identification was burying the album. Free's fourth album came hot on the heels of their breakthrough record "Fire & Water" which had the big hit "All Right Now". By all rights Free's fourth album SHOULD have made them huge stars.

After the huge success of Fire and Water, helped by the smash All Right Now, Free were now under the radar and enjoying some well deserved commercial exposure for their hard work and efforts. Enter the follow-up recording of Highway, which, at the time, went belly up as far as their continued commercial fortunes were concerned and in the 2002 remaster, Phil Sutcliffe's liner notes attempt to explain the main reasons for this. Some in the Free camp pointed out that the design front cover merely has their faces on the front with only the title Highway on the cover; the group's name was nowhere to be found. Another factor lay at the feet of the record company for not properly promoting the effort earnestly enough. Regardless of these factors, there is no doubt about the music, songwriting, arrangements and playing throughout this release, which I feel, is Free's pinnacle as a blues/rock quartet.

Opening with the Highway Song, it starts with Simon Kirke's leadoff snare shuffle followed by Kossoff's stately guitar rhythm and a tinkling piano line to accompany the main melody. The arrangement given is quite organic and there is alot of light and shade worked within this number which has a building quality to it. The Stealer follows in with a typical Kossoff guitar riff that has a menace about it, not unlike Mr. Big from the previous Fire and Water set. As the song progresses, within the rhythm section of Fraser and Kirke and the dynamite vocals of Paul Rodgers, coupled with a few stupendous solo's from Koss, the Stealer is a hidden, buried gem within Free's prodigous repetoire. On My Way is a lilting, carefree tune which has a laidback vibe of love and innocence about it. Rodgers' vocals yearn for the love and desire of a woman, while Koss accompanies duly with sparse, yet meaningful guitar line interpretation. Be My Friend is a slow, contemplative blues-like number driven by piano and Fraser's bass to add an extra depth to this solid number.

Sunny Day and Love You So are coupled together as the ballads of the record and are driven by Rodgers' vocals which give the songs a velvety smooth touch and finish to them; they seem a bit lightweight, but also help to balance the record out as a whole. Ride On a Pony is another blues/rock classic for the band and remains another archetypal Free number with all of the group's collective talents fully intact. Bodie is a bit of a country/folk offering here, and like the majority of the record, has a positive, carefree quality that accompanies. The 2002 remaster offers up 6 bonus songs, 3 of which originate from the sessions during Highway but were discarded in favor of a single release, My Brother Jake b/w Only My Soul. Rain remained an outtake from this same session and is an alternate mix from the released version that appeared on the Songs of Yesterday compilation posthumously. Jake should've been included on the Highway album, even though it predated the album's release by a good 6 months, it would've fit in nicely with the general vibe that was presented throughout the duration of the completed record.

Overall, Highway remains a Free Classic and is duly alongside Fire and Water as the best albums to represent the sound of this band. Not long after the release of Highway, tensions began to mount more and more amongst Fraser and Rodgers, coupled with Kossoff's slow decent into substance abuse and would signal a quick ending to the group; they would reunite a short time later, but things ultimately were never the same, unfortunately...4 and a Half Stars.

I received this item in the time expected and in perfect condition. As for the CD itself, it is outstanding. A real lost gem. Paul Rodgers pipes were at their peak and as smooth as ever. Truly a blues pioneer that is under appreciated.

Paul Rogers is one of the best rock singers of all time. This is a great album.

There are certain albums that can place you in an altered state of consciousness. This is one of the very few that can do this for me. I first heard it at 11, and even though I was surrounded by quality music at the time (my eldest brother was a musician and obsessive music collector), this still stood out to me as something unique and all-absorbing. I still often listen to it at night and it still takes me to that place in my head, some sort of musical Nirvana.

Can't recommend it too highly. Try it in the dark :-).