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As the singer of some of the biggest rock anthems of all time, including All Right Now and Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love, Paul Rodgers has sold more than 125 million records and was hand-picked by Queen to replace Freddie Mercury when Brian May and Roger Taylor reunited in 2004 for two mega-selling world tours.<\/p>\n
Rodgers\u2019s bands Free and Bad Company were as big in America as they were back home, where the frontman had grown up performing in clubs in his native Middlesbrough from the age of 13.<\/p>\n
Dubbed \u201cThe Voice\u201d by fans for his powerful blues holler, Rodgers\u2019 singing has influenced generations of vocalists, including Mercury himself, Paul Young and heavy metal giants Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden and Whitesnake\u2019s David Coverdale.<\/p>\n
Yet, away from the stage, Rodgers is happy to live quietly and delights in revealing that he can sneak past fans virtually whenever he wants. \u201cI don\u2019t mind fame, but I don\u2019t seek publicity at all when I\u2019m not working,\u201d admits the modest 73-year-old star.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can be pretty incognito. I like to be able to pop down to the supermarket and grab some eggs whenever I want. I care what fans think, but I try to let my music speak for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he was recently out cycling in Los Angeles, Rodgers stopped in a garage to check his route \u2013 and was totally ignored, even though Bad Company\u2019s 1979 hit Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll Fantasy was playing on the forecourt radio.<\/p>\n
Don’t miss… <\/strong> Brian May shares Queen Ukraine concert to raise money for refugees<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cYou just don\u2019t exist when you\u2019re on a bicycle,\u201d laughs the affable frontman.<\/p>\n The singer has lived in Canada since the start of the century with wife Cynthia, a fitness instructor and former Miss Canada.<\/p>\n Despite Rodgers\u2019 low-key approach, life with Cynthia, 61, had a rock \u2019n\u2019 roll beginning \u2013 they were introduced to each other by 1970s rock giants Lynyrd Skynyrd.<\/p>\n In 1997, a year after Rodgers and first wife Machiko Shimizu divorced, the singer was touring North America with Skynyrd, famed for Sweet Home Alabama and Free Bird \u2013 and a tragic plane crash which killed two band members and a backing singer in October 1977. Their drummer, Rickey Medlocke, was a friend of Cynthia and seemingly knew the couple would be well-suited.<\/p>\n Rodgers, talking to the Daily Express<\/em> via Zoom from his home in British Columbia, recalls: \u201cRickey told me, \u2018Listen, when we get to Canada you need to be on your best behaviour. That\u2019s because when we get to Vancouver you\u2019re going to meet Cynthia.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI thought, \u2018Okay, great, I\u2019m going to meet a woman called Cynthia. I\u2019m already well-behaved.\u2019 When we did meet, me and Cynthia spent a long time talking. Soon enough, I spent a long time commuting to see her in Canada.\u201d He turns to Cynthia, by his side throughout our interview.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rest is history, isn\u2019t it, sweetheart?\u201d Cynthia agrees with a laugh: \u201cIt\u2019s ancient history.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodgers officially became a Canadian citizen in 2011 after the couple married in 2007. \u201cI was visiting Cynthia for some time,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d stay for longer and longer, and I found the commute to Cynthia\u2019s home in Vancouver was getting too much. I said to Cynthia, \u2018I think I live here really, don\u2019t I?\u2019 and she said, \u2018Yes you do.\u2019 So I said, \u2018Will you marry me?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cNow Cynthia is involved in every area of my life, including managing my career.\u201d<\/p>\n We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info<\/p>\n Despite Rodgers\u2019 compelling vocal style, the then-shy youngster had no intention of becoming a singer when he formed his first band The Roadrunners aged 13. He was initially their bassist. He admits: \u201cI\u2019d never seen myself as a singer or anything in the limelight of that nature.<\/p>\n \u201cThen, when The Roadrunners were starting up, I sat in one day in rehearsals and sang Good Golly, Miss Molly. This voice just came out of me and the band said: \u2018OK, you\u2019re the singer.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the turning point. Then the first time I felt at home in front of a crowd was when we covered Solomon Burke\u2019s blues classic Everybody Needs Somebody To Love at a local youth club. The chorus is \u2018I need you, you, you.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I started to point to people on each \u2018You\u2019, the reaction was so fantastic I thought \u2018Now, this is what I want to do!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Ironically, Rodgers and Free bassist Andy Fraser wrote the all-conquering All Right Now in 1970 because they wanted to get rid of the blues covers in the band\u2019s set.<\/p>\n They wanted their new album not to have any cover versions, but their cover of Albert King\u2019s song The Hunter was the most popular song in their concerts.<\/p>\n Rodgers reveals: \u201cI told Andy \u2018We\u2019ve got to write a song that\u2019s better than The Hunter. It has to be universal, so the lyrics should be something really simple like, I don\u2019t know, all right now\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWe came up with the chorus on the spot, then Andy took the song away and came back with that incredible opening riff: \u2018Bam! Ba-bam-bam!\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThere obviously had to be a story to the song, and the big songs usually have a boy-meets-girl story so: \u2018There she stood, in the street.\u2019 OK, what\u2019s she doing? \u2018Smiling from her head to her feet.\u2019 The rest of the song flowed on the spot. We played All Right Now for the first time that night.<\/p>\n \u201cWe opened our show with it and the crowd demanded to hear it again at the end of the gig. I thought, \u2018Wow, this song has got something.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Sure enough, All Right Now reached No2 in the charts, kept from the top by Mungo Jerry\u2019s In The Summertime for four weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cOh no, don\u2019t mention Mungo Jerry to me,\u201d wails Rodgers good-naturedly. \u201cI don\u2019t mind that they beat us to No1. We had the two biggest hits of the summer, that\u2019ll do me. But I\u2019m going to have In The Summertime in my head all day now. Thanks a lot!\u201d The album containing All Right Now \u2013 Fire And Water \u2013 also reached No 2.<\/p>\n \u201cOur album became Queen\u2019s bible,\u201d smiles Rodgers. \u201cBrian May told me they had to buy a new copy because they wore the vinyl out playing it so much.\u201d Queen repaid Rodgers when May and Roger Taylor invited him to front Queen + Paul Rodgers for four years from 2004.<\/p>\n The collaboration also resulted in a new album, The Cosmos Rocks, which reached No5. \u201cIt was great with Queen, I loved it,\u201d enthuses Rodgers. \u201cThe only challenge was that Brian and Roger didn\u2019t want to tour America. I thought that was a mistake. We\u2019re still good friends, and when Queen later got Adam Lambert in as a singer, I thought he was perfect for the job.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodgers has just released his first album since The Cosmos Rocks.<\/p>\n Midnight Rose is his first solo album for 24 years \u2013 and is co-produced by his wife, as well as famed producer Bob Rock, a veteran who has worked with Metallica, Bryan Adams and Michael Buble among others.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing in the studio with Cynthia was hell on wheels \u2013 she\u2019s a slavedriver,\u201d jokes Rodgers, as Cynthia yells \u201cNever again!\u201d Gathering himself, Rodgers states of Cynthia\u2019s first production role: \u201cI\u2019d always thought Cynthia has a good ear. I\u2019d say to myself, \u2018She knows a lot of stuff.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWhen she made suggestions to me about changes to my songs or lyric additions, I was really impressed. I let Cynthia run with it.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple are so close that it transpires the album\u2019s tale of spurned desire, Take Love, is actually about their cat rather than any vengeful former lover.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a rescue Siamese cat who\u2019s very proud and arch,\u201d remembers Rodgers. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t get near her, and one day Cynthia said, \u2018I can\u2019t love you if you keep walking away.\u2019 I thought, \u2018There\u2019s a line for a song.\u2019 Walking away from love? We\u2019ve all done it.\u201d<\/p>\n As father-of-three Rodgers prepares to go back to his incognito life in the Canadian mountains, he reveals he\u2019s happier than ever now that he\u2019s settled with Cynthia.<\/p>\n \u201cI like things as they are right now,\u201d he beams. \u201cWhen I left home in Middlesbrough, there were three things I wanted \u2013 to survive, to find peace of mind and to make music. I\u2019ve got all of that and I\u2019ve got a beautiful wife. I\u2019m in a good place.\u201d<\/p>\n The publicity-shy singer from Free? He\u2019s doing all right now.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/35\/590x\/secondary\/rodgers-free-4972034.jpg?r=1695333676615\")
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