Paul Kossoff, vinyl record

Paul Kosoff. Paul Francis Kossoff (Francis Kossoff, Paul Francis Kossoff, September 14, 1950, Hampstead, London - March 19, 1976, USA) - British guitarist, songwriter, best known as a member of the group Free. Kossoff takes 51st place in the list of “100 greatest guitarists of all times according to Rolling Stone magazine version“ Born into the family of actor David Kossoff (who was the son of a London tanner of Russian-Jewish descent). In the mid-1960s he already played in amateur groups. His first professional band was Black Cat Bones, where drummer Simon Kirk also played. The band played on the opening at Fleetwood Mac, and Paul Kossoff became friends with guitarist of this group Peter Green. Kossoff and Green often arranged jams, talked a lot about the blues. In April 1968, Kossoff and Kirk teamed up with vocalist Paul Rogers and bass player Andy Fraser and formed the Free group. Problems with drugs accelerated the collapse of Free and knocked down the health of the guitarist. After leaving Free, Paul Kossoff released his first solo album, Back Street Crawler, and dropped out of the music business for almost two years. Remained in the shadow until the spring of 1975, when he and Martin Martin toured England, accompanied by vocalist Terry Wilson-Sleser, New York keyboardist Mike Montgomery, Texas drummer Tony Braunagel and bassist Terry Wilson. Later the band became permanent and was named Back Street Crawler for the solo debut of Kossoff. During a flight from Los Angeles to New York on March 19, 1976, Paul Kossoff died of a heart attack. He was only 25 years old. His body was cremated. In 1977, a retrospective album Koss was released from 16 tracks recorded by Paul at different times. In the late 1990s, in connection with a new wave of interest in Kosoff, another similar album, Blue Soul, was released, which included 14 songs.