Report: PAUL RODGERS Ready To Rock Ahmet Tribute, QUEEN CD
November 7, 2007, 16 years ago
Billboard.com has issued the following report from Gary Graff, Detroit
Despite the excitement surrounding LED ZEPPELIN's reunion, PAUL RODGERS is hoping that fans will remember the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert on December 10th in London is indeed supposed to be about the late Atlantic Records co-founder.
"I do think that the purpose and the point of the show is to celebrate Ahmet Ertegun's life," says Rodgers, the former BAD COMPANY/FREE/THE FIRM/THE LAW frontman who's a late addition to a lineup that, besides Led Zep, includes PETE TOWNSHEND, FOREIGNER, PAOLO NUTINI and BILL WYMAN's RHYTHM KINGS.Rodgers - who met Ertegun when Bad Company signed to Led Zeppelin's Atlantic-distributed Swan Song Records in 1974 - tells Billboard.com he plans to perform two songs, most likely an acoustic version of something from Bad Company's debut album and Free's enduring hit 'All Right Now'.
"Ahmet was that very rare example of an entrepreneurial record company chief who was brave enough and intelligent enough to ... follow what his heart told him, and it usually worked," Rodgers notes. "It's an honor to have been signed by the man who discovered people like Ray Charles, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, who were some of my heroes."Rodgers says that he hopes Led Zep "can live up to the expectations, because they're huge. But God bless 'em and good luck to 'em." There are no plans for he and Zep guitarist Jimmy Page to reunite to play anything from their short-lived '80s band the Firm, though Rodgers notes, "it's not a bad idea, is it? We did make some great music."
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