Fire and Water is the third studio album released by the English rock group Free. It became the band's breakthrough, achieving widespread commercial success after the band's first two studio albums had faced a more muted response. With the "tremendous" acclaim of Fire and Water at their backs, in the words of AllMusic, Free headlined the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival and "appeared destined for superstardom". Specifically, Fire and Water reached #2 on the U.K. album chart, being listed on it for a total of eighteen weeks. In contrast, neither of the band's prior two studio albums had charted at all. Fire and Water additionally reached #17 on the equivalent U.S. chart. The album spawned the popular single "All Right Now", praised by publications such as AllMusic as a hard rock "smash powered by Rodgers' gritty, visceral vocals". The song became a Top 5rock hit in not just the group's native United Kingdom, but it additionally did well in multiple European countries such as Austria, France, and Germany.
Matthew Greenwald has written for AllMusic praising the album. He stated that by 1970 "Free presented itself to the world as a complete band, in every sense of the word", particularly with elements ranging from "Paul Kossoff's exquisite and tasteful guitar work to Paul Rodgers' soulful vocals" on display for listeners. He also positively compared the group's work with that of bands Blind Faith, Cream, and Derek and the Dominos. Multiple critics have viewed the album as the high-point of the Free discography. Track "All Right Now" in particular continues to receive widespread radio airplay.
Track listing
All tracks written by Andy Fraser and Paul Rodgers unless otherwise stated. ;Side one
In 2001 the album was reissued with extra tracks, consisting only of alternate versions of songs already on the album. They include an alternate vocal take of "Oh I Wept" and a remix of "Fire and Water" to correct many of the production deficiencies that the original contains. This version of the song does not fade out; instead Simon Kirke's final drum solo is performed to the end resulting in this version being twenty-one seconds longer than the album version. A BBC Session of this song is also included. The extra tracks also include three different versions of "All Right Now": one is a BBC session; one is the edited version that was released as a single. It runs at 4:18, one minute and fourteen seconds less than the album version: the final verse is gone and the guitar solo is heavily cut down, a fact that Kossoff disliked. The final version of the song is an early take that was never used. In 2008 the album was issued again as a 2CD Deluxe Edition with twenty-three extra tracks. Most of these bonus tracks had previously appeared on the Songs of Yesterdaybox set, but five previously unreleased alternate versions were also included.
Cover versions of the Free track "fire and water"
Wilson Pickett's 1971 version of "Fire and Water" reached #2 on the Billboard R&B charts.
Far Corporation covered "Fire and Water" on their first album, Division One, in 1985.
Black Stone Cherry's version of the title track appeared on the Classic Rockcovermount CD Black Stone Cherry – Hits, Rarities & Live in 2014. "Paul Rodgers is hands-down the greatest rock 'n' roll singer that's ever lived," enthused frontman Chris Robertson. "One of John Fred's favourite songs is 'Fire and Water'. And I was like, 'I want to see if I can even sing it!' You gotta be slightly crazy to attempt singing a Paul Rodgers song, but I think we did a cool version. It's acoustic, but still kinda heavy."
