THE RISE AND FALL OF PAUL KOSSOFF

It was said that behind every beautiful song written is either inspired by relationship or at most times by a breakup or rejection.It was also said that the most beautiful songs ever written were mostly inspired by a brokenheart.

Well one man literally had a broken heart,tired of excess fame and management pressure,he turned into drugs.His name is Paul Kossoff.

It is always said that blues music is without a doubt, a black man's form.It was in Britain in the sixties where there had been a huge blues revival with late saturday night jammings at London's Marquee and eventually one group John Mayall's Bluesbreakers became a nursery of  the most popular British rock guitarists in the names of Peter Green,Jimmy Page,Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton.A real life School Of Rock,the blues scene at that time was massive in Britain compared to the US in which Jeff Beck made a remarkable comment,wherein he states that it must've been because  the music wasn't as stigmatized in America compared to the UK.

Paul Kossoff is the son of British actor David Kossoff,who at a young age had an admiration to the guitar.Born in 1950,his obsession to the guitar and blues music made him a professional musician during his teens in the 1960s.Kossoff's first band included Black Cat Bones which failed to sway the heart of the masses and was at the time commercially forgettable.Though he was considered a professional musician at age 15,it wasn't until he got in touch with Alexis Korner that had him get in touch with two other musicians--singer Paul Rodgers and bass player Andy Fraser in which the latter was known to have been thrown from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers also for being only 15.With former bandmate Simon Kirke on drums,Free was formed and they released two albums in 1968 and 1969 which is nothing more but commercially disastrous.But in 1970,Free gained international fame with the release of their third album Fire And Water.With the ultimate success of its single "All Right Now",Kossoff and the rest of Free catapulted to huge rock stardom.

(Photo: Free clockwise L-R Paul Kossoff,Paul Rodgers,Simon Kirke and Andy Fraser)

But this sudden amount of fame took toll on Paul Kossoff that he didn't know what to do about it,perhaps how to handle it.It is always said that one musician's worst enemy is his own self on how he'll be able to top his achievement.And when a follow-up single "The Stealer" failed to follow the huge success of "All Right Now",Kossoff turned into drugs probably crushed due to fame and management pressure.Worst of all, Free broke up in acrimony when Andy Fraser left the band which made Kossoff retreat to drugs even more.In this point of time, the only reality Kossoff ever wanted is oblivion as he took more and more dubious amounts of dope which would eventually take his life later on.

After a brief amount of hiatus,Fraser was replaced by Japanese bass player Tetsu Yamauchi in which their management thought that it will make things a lot better for Kossoff if they bring Free back together again.Perhaps due to the various amounts of drugs he has ingested,it didn't work for him as he retreated further more into drugs and declared himself unavailable to tour Japan.

(photo left:Tetsu Yamauchi became an official member of Free in 1972,replacing Andy Fraser on bass)

With the unreliability on behalf of Kossoff's,Free broke up once more and this time for good after the release of an album ominously called Heartbreaker in which he hardly participated on.

What Paul Kossoff did however,was to release a solo album called Back Street Crawler which was highly praised by some rock critics but commercially ignored.And its back to his little Notting Hill flat again to stay in bed and do drugs.It was said that it was the pain over Free breaking up that crushed Paul Kossoff and made him to retreat further into drugs,but nevertheless,he was a very much courted session musician.

The following year,Kossoff was said to have snapped out of it,probably stoned out of his mind,that in 1975 he formed a band and named it Back Street Crawler after his eponymous debut album.A tour of the UK was set,but it only suggest that Free had been a good band and was at the time a tough act to follow.Considering that Kossoff was never a songwriter,aside from the fact that he only had a few co-credits on those classic Free albums,he never wrote a song himself.And the BSC material was out of his hands too.

(photo above:Paul Kossoff's eponymous debut album Back Street Crawler,1973)


In September 1975,he had a massive heart attack,probably due to the cause of his frequent drug taking.It was said that he was clinically dead for about 35 seconds and luckily enough,the doctors managed to revive him.Against all medical advice,he launched into touring with BSC and sadly at Glasgow's Apollo he ended up staggering onstage playing out of tune.Eventually he fell off,most people say it was due to his condition,and it was back in the hospital again for him this time to be treated for the injuries he got when he fell offstage.

1976 seemed to have good news at last for Paul,he traveled to the United States to discuss with the execs at Atlantic Records.Tragically,he died in his sleep while on a flight from Los Angeles to New York,it was a recurrence of his previous heart attack last September,he was only 25 years old.

His father made a tribute to him by doing a one man tour of his stage performances on what supposed to be a way of saying thank you for his life being spared in September,but the tour went ahead anyway.

Drugs have destroyed lives of people and our idols in the music scene were no exception,Jimi Hendrix,Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison even took inspiration from acid and wrote songs about it.But they all ended up falling to its evil spell with their lives prematurely extinguished.Though they became "legends" and "saints" nonetheless.


                                                                 ...And sadly,Paul Kossoff died a broken man.

Free with their biggest hit "All Right Now"



  (c) Keith Vernon Adagio