Happy 75th birthday to Free/Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers

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Legendary singer Paul Rodgers turns 75 on Tuesday.

Rodgers is best known for his work as the frontman of Free, which had a top-five hit with “All Right Now” in 1970, as well as the frontman of the supergroup Bad Company. 

Bad Company’s self-titled debut album, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in May, hit #1 thanks to such classic songs as “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” and the title track. Rodgers told ABC Audio “it’s a very lovely feeling” knowing the songs on Bad Company have stood the test of time after 50 years, sharing, “When I listen back to it, I’m like, wow.”

After leaving Bad Company in 1982, Rodgers launched a successful solo career and also fronted the band The Law, featuring former Faces drummer Kenney Jones.

In 2004, Rodgers joined Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor for a TV performance, and soon the Queen members were asking him to join them on the road. The touring collaboration, under the name Queen + Paul Rodgers, kicked off in 2005. They even recorded an album together, The Cosmos Rocks, which was released in 2008. Rodgers left in 2009 to get back to his solo career.

In 2023, Rodgers released Midnight Rose, his first solo album in almost 25 years, and revealed to the world he had suffered a series of strokes starting in 2016 that nearly took away his ability to sing. He told ABC Audio making the album helped him with his recovery.

“Well, it feels like being born again, actually, it’s absolutely great,” Rodgers said. “I was sort of incapacitated. … And I had to take it step by step. And everything I did was like a progress, was a step in the right direction.” 


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