Not a day goes by without the chords of "All Right Now" ringing out on a Classic Rock station (or perhaps through the speakers at your local supermarket).

You've heard it so often that you can sing along with most of it, at least the parts Paul Rodgers sings that are somewhat intelligible. But if someone asks you to name the artist, you might be stumped for a minute. And when you come up with the answer, you might attach the words "one-hit wonder."

True, the British band Free had just that one hit in the United States. And besides that single song, Free is remembered almost exclusively as the precursor to Rodgers' better-known band, Bad Company. Around that time, I remember everyone being under the impression that the two groups were somewhat interchangeable and just happened to record different songs under different names.

The real story is somewhat more complex. And much more tragic.

Let's start way back in 1968, when a group of teenagers recorded their first album, drawing heavily from the British blues revival at the time. The result was Free's "Tons of Sobs," featuring Rodgers' already well-developed vocals backed by the rhythm section of Andy Fraser of bass and Simon Kirke on drums.

Free might have ended up being as forgotten today as some other groups recording the same style of music at the time. (Chicken Shack, the Groundhogs, the Keef Hartley Band, the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation - any of those particularly ring a bell?) But Free had one heck of a guitar player.

Paul Kossoff had just turned 18 when "Tons of Sobs" was released, and his work on his vintage Gibson Les Paul immediately drew rave reviews, standing out among a particularly fertile crop of young guitarists in his own country. His workout on Albert King's "The Hunter" was particularly worth the price of the album.

On Free's second album, simply titled "Free," the band started moving away from 12-bar blues, producing some moody classics like "Broad Daylight," the band's first single (it tanked) and "Free Me." But the quartet also continue to rock it up on such numbers as the opening track, "I'll Be Creepin'," a dual showcase for Kossoff's guitar (featuring very effective use of the wah-wah) and Rodgers' already instantly recognizable vocals.

"Fire and Water," released in 1970, was the watershed album. It contained "All Right Now," which cracked the Top 5 in both the U.S. and U.K., but also features several other of Free's best-remembered compositions: "Heavy Load," "Oh I Wept" and "Mr. Big" (later to be covered in grand fashion by Gov't Mule). That summer, the band was among the headliners at the legendary Isle of Wight festival, where Free's performance of "All Right Now" was filmed and today is available as the opening track in the film "Message to Love."

(Incidentally, that festival represents the final filmed performances of both Jimi Hendrix and the Doors with Jim Morrison. Obviously, it's highly recommended.)

Suddenly, the members of Free, although some still had yet to turn 20, were at the top of the pyramid, competing with the likes of the Who and Led Zeppelin for superstar status.

So, what happened?

I've read where the follow-up album, "Highway," failed to generate any excitement, although I kind of like it. And then the dreaded "creative differences" started weighing in, and the band split up around the time a live album and another British hit single, "My Brother Jake," were released. Free did reunite, without Fraser, for two more albums, although Kossoff's role in the finale, "Heartbreaker," was underwhelming. The standout track on that album is "Wishing Well," on which Rodgers actually plays the guitar parts. You used to hear it on FM radio back in the day.

Kossoff recorded a solo album, "Back Street Crawler," in 1973, featuring a couple of structured songs and a couple of extended jams: "Tuesday Morning" clocks in at over 17 minutes, and the unedited version of "Time Away" (which appears on a five-disc Freeanthology, "Songs of Yesterday") is even longer. One of the tracks, "Molton Gold," featured one last go-around for the original members of Free, and the tortured harmony vocals of its chorus should have propelled it to hit-single status.

But the guitarist who once was mentioned in the same breath with Clapton and Page was fighting demons he couldn't overcome. On March 19, 1976, Paul Kossoff suffered a fatal heart attack while on an airline flight from Los Angeles to New York. He was 25.

Rodgers and Kirke meanwhile had teamed up with Mott the Hoople's Mick Ralphs and King Crimson's Boz Burrell to form Bad Company, which clicked immediately and sold millions of records throughout the latter part of the '70s.

And Free was destined to be a band that, as the average listener surmises, sounds just like Bad Company.

But it really should be the other way around.

For more about Paul Kossoff, check out this highly informative article by Tom Guerra (a good guitarist in his own right), published in Vintage Guitar magazine.