Heartbreaker (Free album)
| Heartbreaker | ||||
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| Studio album by Free | ||||
| Released | January 1973 February 2002 (reissue) |
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| Recorded | October – November 1972, Island Studios, London | |||
| Genre | Blues-rock, hard rock, British R&B | |||
| Length | 35:45 | |||
| Label | Island | |||
| Producer | Free and Andy Johns | |||
| Free chronology | ||||
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| Allmusic |   |
Heartbreaker is the sixth and final studio album by English rock group Free, that provided them with one of their most successful singles, "Wishing Well". It was recorded in late 1972 after bassist Andy Fraser had left the band and while guitarist Paul Kossoff was ailing from an addiction to Mandrax (Quaaludes), and features a different line up from previous albums. Tetsu Yamauchi was brought in to replace Fraser, while John "Rabbit" Bundrick became the band's keyboard player to compensate for the increasingly unreliable Kossoff (singer Paul Rodgers played keyboards on the previous album Free at Last). Both Yamauchi and Bundrick had played with Kossoff and drummer Simon Kirke on the album Kossoff, Kirke, Tetsu & Rabbit during that period in late 1971 when the band had broken up for the first time. Also, several other musicians were used on the album. The album was co-produced by Andy Johns as well as Free themselves.
One immediate effect of Fraser's departure was the loss of the Fraser/Rodgers songwriting partnership that had hitherto provided the bulk of the band's catalogue. Hence many of the songs were written solely by Rodgers, although some are credited to the entire band as a symbolic gesture, including the single "Wishing Well." Bundrick wrote two of the album's eight tracks.
Meanwhile, Kossoff was extremely resentful of "Snuffy" Walden being brought in as a session musician to provide guitar tracks when the other band members' patience began to break. This exacerbated even further his problems, but on those occasions where recording went well he produced some notable work; he is in fact far more prominent on this album than on the previous one. He is uncredited on the hit single 'Wishing Well', however the lead guitar on the track is unmistakably Kossoff's, and Kirke has confirmed this.
The credits on the album sleeve are inaccurate; Kossoff plays on the whole of side 1 and the final track on side 2, 'Seven Angels'. Walden's guitar appears on tracks 2, 3 and 4 of side 2, so 'Seven Angels' features both him and Kossoff. Walden also appears on some alternate mixes of 'Wishing Well' but not the version released on the UK single and album. The Free box set 'Songs of Yesterday' features a mix of 'Muddy Water' with guitar by Walden and an alternate version of 'Common Mortal Man' with guitar by both Walden and Kossoff.
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