Paul Kossoff

SIX YEARS into his training as a classical guitarist, Paul Kossoff witnessed Eric Clapton with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Soon afterwards, Paul bought his own Gibson Les Paul – which, in the mid 1960s, had already been out of production for five years or so! Stints with Black Cat Bones and Champion Jack Dupree led to Paul joining Free in the spring of 1968.

Paul’s style encompassed elements of blues and soul, using unorthodox chord voicings, which filled out Free’s ‘power trio’ format and set him apart from many of his peers – along with his heartfelt solos, featuring an inimitable vibrato (I should know, I tried very hard in the example solo!).

Playing a solo ‘in the style of’ any guitarist is a tricky thing to do. How are we to secondguess how a player might react to a chord progression or dynamic? My approach has been to take an overview of some of Paul’s best-known solos, mixing open strings with fretted notes like his solo in All Right Now, expanding this into arpeggiated type patterns as heard in Mr Big, and sustained string bends with vibrato reminiscent of Fire And Water (though not sustained quite as

Paul’s – I couldn’t get away with quite that volume in the studio!). Paul was not a keen user of effects pedals, not that there were many available during Free’s heyday. He would usually plug into Marshall heads and cabinets, though he was also seen using Orange amps, and there are rumours of him having used a Selmer Treble-N-Bass 50 for the recording of All Right Now.

Whatever he used, the key is a driven, rather than distorted, tone. Paul was going for melody in his playing, not rippling scale or arpeggio runs – and that vibrato is deservedly infamous. Enjoy and I’ll see you next time.