Tons of Sobs
Tons of Sobs is the debut album by English blues rock band Free, released on 14 March 1969. While the album failed to chart in the UK and reached #197 in the US, Free are still cited as one of the definitive bands of the British blues boom of the late 1960s even though this is the only album of their canon that can strictly be called blues rock. The title of the album does not relate directly to the content of the album; it is both a colloquialism of "lots of money", reflecting the swaggering attitude with which the album was made, and an oblique reference to the darker, more sombre moments of the record.
Recording
Free were a new band when they recorded Tons of Sobs, and they were extremely young and precocious: none of them was yet twenty and the youngest, bassist Andy Fraser, was just sixteen years old. They had achieved a following through constant touring, and their debut album consisted for the most part of their live set-list. That said, eight out of the album's ten tracks are originals which was unusual compared to the debut albums of bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
With the band signed to Chris Blackwell's Island Records, Guy Stevens was hired to produce the album (he later became notable for producing early albums for Mott the Hoople and The Clash's legendary album London Calling [1979]). He opted for a minimalist attitude to production, due to the extremely low budget of about £800, creating a very raw and raucous sound – although it may have been that the relative inexperience of the band was also been a contributing factor to this. As such the album is a marked contrast in production terms from the band's later albums. The simple nature of the recording meant that many tracks translated well into a live setting and several songs from this album were still performed even when the band had written and recorded many more for subsequent records.
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Track listing
- Side one
- "Over the Green Hills (Pt. 1)" (Paul Rodgers) – 0:49
- "Worry" (Rodgers) – 3:26
- "Walk in My Shadow" (Rodgers) – 3:29
- "Wild Indian Woman" (Rodgers, Andy Fraser) – 3:39
- "Goin' Down Slow" (James Burke Oden) – 8:20
- Side two
- "I'm a Mover" (Rodgers, Fraser) – 2:56
- "The Hunter" (Booker T. Jones, Carl Wells, Donald Dunn, Al Jackson, Jr., Steve Cropper) – 4:13
- "Moonshine" (Rodgers, Paul Kossoff) – 5:04
- "Sweet Tooth" (Rodgers) – 4:54
- "Over the Green Hills (Pt. 2)" (Rodgers) – 1:58
- Bonus tracks
Recent CD reissues contain several bonus tracks:
- "I'm a Mover" (BBC session) (Rodgers) – 3:04
- "Waitin' On You" (BBC session) (B.B. King, Ferdinand Washington) – 2:15
- "Guy Stevens Blues" (Rodgers, Fraser, Simon Kirke, Kossoff) – 4:39
- "Moonshine" (Alternative vocal) (Rodgers, Kossoff) – 5:09
- "Sweet Tooth" (Early take and alternative vocal) (Rodgers) – 4:53
- "Visions of Hell" (Fraser, Rodgers) – 3:46
- "Woman by the Sea" (Alternative version) (Fraser, Rodgers) – 3:30
- "Over the Green Hills" (BBC session) (Rodgers) – 3:51
Personnel
- Additional personnel
- Guy Stevens – producer
- Andy Johns – engineer
- Steve Miller – piano thumping
- Mike Sida – front cover photograph
- Richard Bennett Zeff – inside cover photography
References
- Strong, Martin C. The Great Rock Discography, 6th edition. Edinburgh: Canongate Books 1994, 2002. pp. 392-3.
- Sutcliffe, Phil. Notes to Tons of Sobs by Free. Universal Island Records Ltd. 1968, 2001.
External links
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