PAUL RODGERS is real special. You can name the duff albums since Free split up, you can say he's old hat, or a hanger on from the days of Deep Purple, Led Zep, and dinosaur rock. However, this writer would swear in the highest court - i.e. down in the pub - that the Middlesbrough chap had, still has, a voice to reckon with, a voice of purity which could always shade into the gravelly soulful when needed.

Free were his band, he was their sole singer, and they had at least a dozen songs in their repertoire that were classics of a special brand of soul-accented blues rock. 'My Brother Jake' though atypical of Free's style, evokes an early seventies-hood of patchouli and patches in a way that their ever-recurring hit 'All Right Now' somehow doesn't. 'Wishing Well' and 'Be My Friend' still sound powerful, loaded with a special pathos, lent credence later on by the tragic death of their brilliant axe/man Paul Kossoff.

All of this is quite relevant, because one gets an additional six track CD with the new record which takes a trip through Rodgers' back pages. Three Free tracks feature, plus three from the dodgy Bad Company days, incidentally revealing that 'Feel Like Making Love' is still the trite thing it always was. All six are re-recordings, apparently, but the personnel involved remain mysteriously uncredited, and the guitarist(s) on the Free songs sure don't sound like old Koss.

Which brings us nicely to the inherent weakness of the main fifteen-track album under review here. Put plainly - and, of course, unfairly - there's too much guitar that doesn't sound remotely like what Kossoff used to do. Guest guitarists Trevor Rabin from Yes, Neal Schon and Jeff Beck all act like little guitar hero boys let loose in the sweet factory - all misdirected fuzz and overdrive, with sadly little of Kossoff's silences and pacing. Jimmy Page isn't in there, and, judging from his, er, sterling work on Coverdale/Page, I'm sure he too would have played the same kind of stadium rock hokum as these guys do. (Eric Clapton would have been tasteful, so would John Martyn, who played on Kossoff's 'Back Street Crawler' solo album, and toured America with Free and Traffic. Pity these weren't in).

On the other hand, Buddy Guy is in top form on the acoustic title/opening track, which gets an electric reprise as track fifteen. To his credit, Brian May sounds like he's thought a bit about how he should sound on Willie Dixon's 'I'm Ready', while Gary Moore spins some incredible notes on Dixon's 'She Moves Me'. Muddy Waters' 'Standing Around Crying' is arguably the best track, and David Gilmour and Paul Rodgers are simply hand in glove on this exercise, Gilmour showing how well he understands real slow blues. Likewise, Slash is rather good, and not at all over the top as guitarist on a version of the aforementioned 'The Hunter'. Overall, the album is very much about guitars, and it's a long, long album, (value for money surely, CD pricing brigade?).

Wouldn't it be great if Rodgers decided to take the show on the road, but without the flash merchants?

* Paddy Kehoe