Andy Fraser, an English bassist and songwriter best known for his tenure in the hard rock band Free, died on Monday. He was 62.

Weaned on early American blues like many of his other contemporary peers of the period, the London-born Fraser found a mentor in Alexis Korner, who was one of the more seminal figures of that late 1960s British blues boom by way of electricity. It was Korner who suggested Fraser, 15 at the time, to blues king John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers when the band needed a bassist. Korner then became a sort of liaison to getting Fraser, after his stint with Mayall, associated with the band he is most remembered for and went on to co-found.

The self-titled debut album by Bad Company is now available on MP3 format from Amazon this month for only $5.

Born mostly from the remnants of the British hard rock band Free, which its lead singer, bluesy belter Paul Rodgers was a part of, Bad Company had steady success through the 1970s with its basic yet heavy approach to rock and roll. Originally releasing records on Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label, the band had a knack for churning out rockers and ballads that have lasted to this day. “Can’t Get Enough,” the dark and moody title track, the restless “Movin’ On,” the urgent “Ready For Love,” and others on this debut release churn with a rock swagger without all the pomp and bombast of said Zeppelin.

Browse all 1,000 albums on sale this month for only $5 each, as well as several albums on sale this week for only $2.99 each.

March 19 marks a sad day for fans of rock and heavy metal. Two astonishingly talented guitarists, both leading, pioneering figures in their genre and era, died on this date. Paul Kossoff, lead guitarist of rock band Free and Ozzy Osbourne‘s Randy Rhoads died only 6 years apart. Both at the young age of 25.

Ask a cross-section of heavy metal fans who the greatest ever guitarist of the genre is and you can bet your last guitar string the name of Randy Rhoads will not be far from most lips. After Ozzy Osbourne left Black Sabbath he was looking for a guitarist for his solo project. So the story goes, Ozzy heard Rhoads warming up and hired him on the spot, so impressed was the Prince of Darkness with the teenaged guitarist.

Born December 6, 1956, in Santa Monica, California, Randy Rhoads began his reputation as a talented young musician in the heavy metal band Quiet Riot, playing on the band’s first two (very limited release) albums. But it was with Ozzy Osbourne that he became known, and still is known, as one of the greatest guitaristsof all time. Amazingly, Blizzard of Ozz, which contains the well-know song “Crazy Train” and Diary of a Madman are the only two albums Rhoads released with Ozzy before his life was tragically cut short.

Through the end of January 2011, Amazon is offering up classic rock albums for only $5.00 each in MP3 format. If you purchase MP3s through Amazon, it downloads into your iTunes account, so it’s as simple as purchasing directly through iTunes. Also, you can now gift these MP3 purchases – just click the “Give album OR song as gift” button on the right on the product page.

I’ve written about my love of Pink Floyd tons of times already, so I have to mention that one of the albums on sale for only $5.00 is Dark Side Of The Moon, so if you don’t already own this album, definitely grab it now, it’s insanely amazing.

Other albums available for $5.00 each are John Lennon‘s Power To The People – The Hits, which has 15 of Lennon’s solo hits like “Imagine,” “Instant Karma,” and “Woman”; Free‘s Fire And Water, singer Paul Rodgers’s first band and contains their hit “All Right Now,” and Styx‘s Crystal Ball.