Paul Rodgers's birthday today. Two Bad Company concerts, from 2008 and 1974.

[highplainsdem]

This first concert video is from 2008, not 1988 as the title of the video says (lots of YouTube comments correcting the date, but the person who posted it never corrected it):

And from the summer of 1974, when their first album was climbing to #1 on Billboard's chart, a performance taped in Long Beach CA for Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, which aired a couple months later:

Both concert videos start with their theme song. And it's easy to tell why Rodgers is considered one of the best rock singers ever, if not the best.

[SamKnause]

1. Thanks for posting.

Amazing singer, amazing band.

I am 68.

I tell everyone that I grew up in a time with the best music the world has ever heard.

Bad Company is an excellent example of that music.

[highplainsdem]

2. You're welcome! And I agree completely about that time, how good the music was.

I've always loved hard rock and blues rock, so I thought Led Zeppelin and Bad Company were the greatest bands ever. But there were lots of other fantastic bands.

Don't know if you were familiar with all the songs in that setlist for the 1974 concert. The final song, "The Stealer," was actually from the 4th album by Free, Rodgers's previous band. Great song.

The 3rd song in the set, "Little Miss Fortune," had been recorded by Bad Company during the 10 days or so they had to record at Headley Grange when Led Zeppelin couldn't record there then (when BadCo managed to record an entire album though their manager didn't expect them to record more than a few songs). But it wasn't included on the album. They didn't have a good version, the right arrangement, yet, and it ended up as the B side for "Can't Get Enough" -- a very weak B side, compared to the A side. I don't recall it getting any airplay, at least not on my local AOR stations, and that version of the song would NOT have held up in that setlist, following "Bad Company" and "Ready for Love" and leading into "Rock Steady" and "Can't Get Enough."

Fortunately they'd come up with a perfect arrangement for the live version by then, one that should have been on the album and would have received a lot of airplay. They'd fixed an awkward bridge, and added an amazing outro starting about three minutes in, and still kept the song to just under 4-1/2 minutes, only seconds longer than "Can't Get Enough." Really wish this version of the song had ended up on one of their albums.

Video of just that song, from the Kirshner concert:

The demo, from the deluxe edition of the album, so you can hear the difference:

The version used for the B side, which wasn't as good as the demo (really didn't like the vocal):

[SamKnause]

3. Thanks for all the interesting info.

I knew about Free.

Alright Now is one of my top favorites.

There were so many great bands that we rarely played the whole album.

Some bands were so great we always played the whole album.

I had not heard "Little Miss Fortune", which is odd, because Bad Company was always is the category of play the whole album.

Thanks for posting the videos.


I fired up a bowl, cranked it up, and enjoyed the hell out of it !!!

Paul Rogers vocals in the second video are amazing !!!

I couldn't say any of the 3 were unpleasing to the ear, but the first would be my favorite.

[highplainsdem]

4. You're welcome, and I'm glad I could help you find some "new" music from BadCo.

And I want to clarify, re what I said about Rodgers's vocals for the B side recording -- I thought he could/should have done better, but I've never heard him sing anything badly. Love his voice.

Re "All Right Now" -- one of my favorites, too, since I first heard it, and one of the few songs I heard unexpectedly and remember exactly where I was when I heard it for the first time. I was in a club on Manhattan's East Side (had dropped out of college, bored to tears with academia, and took off for NYC as a place to party well away from family and professors (and lost my scholarship dropping out, and since it had never even occurred to me that I might lose my scholarship, this wasn't the brightest decision of my life)). The club had a restaurant and boutique, too, and I'd just had a great dinner and was shopping in the boutique when their sound system played "All Right Now." And it was like the club vanished. All I noticed was the amazing song, that incredible voice.

He still sounds incredible. I don't believe there's any other rock vocalist whose voice has held up as well.

Rodgers singing "Simple Man" from that Hard Rock reunion concert in 2008 (a performance Alison Krauss was raving about in an interview earlier this month, https://democraticunderground.com/103464557 ):

[SamKnause]

5. How did you know this video is one of my favorites ??? I have this video bookmarked.

He sounds amazing !!!

I have been listening to this song on an off for 2 weeks.

I noticed when he sings with his eyes closed his voice really comes alive.

He puts his heart and soul into it.

The talent simple flows from him seamlessly.

This video is my favorite version of this song.

Thanks for posting.

[highplainsdem]

6. Well, I suppose I could have intuited that you love that video of "Simple Man" --

but since you said you've been listening to it on and off for 2 weeks, I'm wondering if you might've stumbled across it in an OP I posted here and cross-posted in the Lounge on the 6th, after I saw an interview where Alison Krauss was raving about it. This is the post, the one here:

https://democraticunderground.com/103464557

It didn't get any replies, but I hope some people watched that video, and the Led Zeppelin videos, and I especially hope they watched that delightful interview with Krauss and Robert Plant. The YouTube video I'd posted was taken down, but I'd also included a link to the original interview at Pitchfork.com:

https://pitchfork.com/tv/pass-the-aux/robert-plant-and-alison-krauss/

As I said in that OP, the interview really is a treat.

I was amused watching Robert Plant's reaction while Krauss raved about Rodgers's performance of "Simple Man." She's never made any secret of how much she loves his voce, including when she was quoted when Rolling Stone included him among the 100 greatest singers of all time:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-singers-of-all-time-147019/paul-rodgers-46966/

"His voice is so tough and so masculine," says Alison Krauss, who grew up a big fan of Paul Rodgers, "he might as well be standing there with a gun while he's singing." With his throaty, impeccably controlled roar, Rodgers was born to sing over big guitars — which he did again and again, most notably with pioneering rockers Free and the Seventies hitmaking machine Bad Company. From "All Right Now" to "Can't Get Enough," his combination of macho blues power and melodic sensitivity still sets the standard for hard-rock frontmen. Rodgers was idolized by the late Freddie Mercury (whom he is now replacing in Queen) and Lynyrd Skynyrd's Ronnie Van Zant. "The sound of his voice represents a whole kind of man to me," says Krauss. "Incredibly masculine, sexy, hardworking."

In that interview earlier this month, while she called his singing "otherworldly" and continued praising him, Plant sat there with a poker face, and finally said, "That's Paul" -- and then added, "He married well." An amusing reminder that Paul's married to a former Miss Canada and fitness expert, who keeps him in great shape (which his fans appreciate).

[SamKnause]

7. Thanks again for all the great information.

I think I stumbled upon the video cruising on YouTube.

A reminder that you still get credit for "Little Miss Fortune".

[highplainsdem]

8. Well, I'm glad we have similar great taste.

And that I could explain why "Little Miss Fortune" was in that set in 1974, and why it was the hit that a "hitmaking machine" just missed.