Maybe you’ve got to die to get your due.

I’m sitting in front of my Mac watching the Masters on my Slingbox and downloading music from the Internet.  Was gonna write about these great alternative takes of the Beach Boys’ "’Til I Die" until I heard this.

When I was twenty one I lived in Salt Lake City.  It was so bizarre.  I lived in the suburbs, in a cinderblock house, and then I drove up the canyon into the wilderness to go skiing at Snowbird, located in the Wasatch Mountains, which resemble the Alps more than the Colorado Rockies that get all the press.

And if you got off the tram and took an extremely long catwalk, upon the ridge of the Peruvian Cirque, and then skied through some trees, you’d end up on a precipice, whereupon you could push off and ski the Wave.

Imagine being at the beach, with a giant roller coming your way.  Then turn the whole thing on its axis to a forty degree tilt and visualize dancing down the curl on your skis.

That’s what it was like.

But there was always that moment.  Before you started down.  When you caught your breath and looked around.  At the towering spires.  It was just you and nature.  Unless you were a local, you didn’t even know how to get there, never mind have the ability to ski down.

And at that very moment a line would start to play in my head…

Freedom is the only thing, means a damn to me

Bad Company was a supergroup comprised of players who were not that super, in stature anyway.  Sure, Paul Rodgers had sung "All Right Now", but Free had never had another hit and had broken up.  Mick Ralphs was in perennial wannabe Mott The Hoople, which finally broke through with the Bowie written and produced "All The Young Dudes", but Mick was not a famous guitarslinger.  Who knew this new concoction on Led Zeppelin’s label Swan Song would be so damn special, an instant success.

Yes, "Can’t Get Enough" was all over the radio before the album was released.  And although that was a killer track, the true winner opened up the second side, the eponymous number, "Bad Company".  And if you don’t know "Seagull", you’re in for a treat.

The second album, "Straight Shooter", was even bigger.  "Feel Like Makin’ Love" epitomized AOR radio in ’75.  It had the power, the swagger, the hooks that made everything on the AM dial irrelevant.  And "Shooting Star" is one of the few numbers about the wannabe to grave experience of being a rock star that works.  Never mind Paul Rodgers’ vocal gymnastics on "Deal With The Preacher" and "Wild Fire Woman".

Not that anyone held up Bad Company as a paragon of quality, as the best band in the land, as a trailblazer.  Bad Company were journeymen.  Who promised little and delivered more.  That’s what bugs me about the Foo Fighters fanaticism.  Who doesn’t like Dave Grohl?  But not only are the Foos not Nirvana, they’re journeymen at best, they wish they could be Bad Company, can you stop telling me how fantastic they are, it cheapens the whole enterprise, turns me off to your opinion and the hype.

And then came "Run With The Pack".

This was the beginning of the slide.  The albums were still good, but not better.  There was a bit too much filler.  To the point where when "Desolation Angels" turned it all around, the public was burned out and to a great degree ignored it, even though you can listen to "Crazy Circles" as long as Van Halen’s "Secrets", which is forever, and "Lonely For Your Love" has got the same energy, the same winning quality of the cuts on "Straight Shooter".

But thirty five years later, it’s two tracks from "Run With The Pack" that go through my mind most.

First, the opener, "Live For The Music".

Some people say I’m no good
Laying in my bed all day
But when the nighttime comes
I’m ready to rock and roll my troubles away

I’m like Yogi Bear.  I sleep til noon.

But by time it’s dark, I too get every picnic basket that’s in Jellystone Park.

I never fit in.  The teachers were always suspicious of me.  I might take direction, but they knew I never believed it.  I could deliver on their terms, but thought they were b.s.  I was a square peg in a round hole.  And the system doesn’t like people like me.

The system likes people who conform.  Who don’t ask questions.  Who play by the rules.  Rock and roll is a hobby, not a life.

But it was for me.

It was the only thing that mattered.

That and skiing.

And that’s still true.

I went to college in Vermont so I could go skiing every day.  Best investment I ever made.  And when I graduated, I didn’t go to Wall Street, I didn’t even go to Los Angeles to get closer to the music, I went to Salt Lake City.  To where the snow was guaranteed, where there was nobody to bother me, to tell me what to do and who to be.  You see, what I was looking for was simple, even if I was and still am a complicated man.

I am just a simple man, working on the land

That’s what a skier does.  Cuts up an evanescent surface for the momentary feeling.  It puts nothing in your bank account, but does wonders for your soul.

I am just a simple man, working with my hands

The poles are a necessary ingredient.  They grant not only balance, they define space, they deliver context.

I am just a simple man, trying to be me

And nobody likes it.  Whether it be that teacher in law school who kicked me out of class for asking him a question he couldn’t answer after he criticized me for putting my feet on the desk or the endless naysayers filling up my inbox today, telling me I’m a shithead for being honest, admitting that I came late to James Brown as opposed to withholding and being superior like them.  Like Bob Dylan sang, everybody’s trying to drag you down into the hole they’re in.  They don’t want you to rise above, they don’t want you to be free, because that means they’ve got to look themselves in the mirror and ask "Why can’t I do that?"

I am just a simple man, trying to be free

That’s all I want.  I don’t care what you do, I just want to be free to follow my own path.  They say they believe in freedom, but then they tell me what words to use, what opinions to have, become the thought police they supposedly rail against.

Used to be a whole bunch of people were on my side.  Now we’re renegades.  Everybody else is sucking up to the system to get paid.  I live in a rent controlled house.  I do without.  Just so I can be free.  If you think I’m rich, you’re right, even though you’d be horrified if you looked at my tax return.

You see, freedom is the only thing that means a damn to me.

And when I downloaded this live Bad Company concert from Albuquerque in 1976 I scoured the track listing and upon seeing my favorite cut I pulled it right up.

And you never know what you’re gonna get.  These shows are not authorized, not fixed in a studio thereafter.  Sometimes they’re recorded on a cassette in the loge, other times they come straight from the board.

But in this case, I was greeted with Mick Ralphs sweet guitar.  A sound that took me instantly away and put me up in the Wasatch, in a better frame of mind.

And the drums started to pound and then Paul Rodgers started to sing.

They’ve never had anybody this good on "American Idol".  Not only has he got the pipes, his voice is not colorless, but full-bodied, rich, it sounds human.

This is rock and roll.  This is what made me a believer.

Bad Company will never be in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.  Because they weren’t cool.  Instead of sitting in their hotel rooms smoking cigarettes and reading poetry they were drinking whisky and pulling groupies.  You see there’s a carnality in rock and roll.  Patti Smith may have shrieked, but one never got the impression it was because she was in the throes of the act.  Whereas Paul Rodgers was showing his dick in each and every one of his songs.  Not that it was all bluster.  To get in someone’s pants you’ve got to be sweet, cunning, charismatic…  A rock star is all three.

It’s quite simple.

It’s not about being able to decipher royalty rates.  You can hire a lawyer for that.

And it’s not about booking gigs.  You can count on your agent, your manager.

It’s about being pure.  And free.

That’s the essence of rock and roll.

That’s the essence of me.