Hot Wax: Robin Trower’s Bridge of Sighs (1974/2024)

I spent untold hours circa 1974-75 playing Robin Trower’s Bridge of Sighs over and over again on my funky BSR turntable (you know, the kind where you stacked three or four LPs on the spindle and let ‘em rip!). Although I was a fan of Trower’s work with Procol Harum, his skills were often overshadowed by that band’s keyboard-dominated sound. I dug Trower’s debut, 1973’s Twice Removed From Yesterday, but the quantum leap the guitarist underwent for Bridge of Sighs was unparalleled. The ‘Master of the Stratocaster’ might have taken influence and inspiration from Jimi Hendrix, but he took his spacey, jagged, ethereal six-string experimentation into another realm with songs like “Little Bit of Sympathy,” “Too Rolling Stoned,” “Day of the Eagle,” and the title track, a classic stoner jam if there ever was one.

As amazing as Bridge of Sighs was and is, subsequent efforts like 1974’s For Earth Below and 1975’s Long Misty Days – while featuring fine craftsmanship – lacked the spark of Trower’s sophomore effort. Trower doesn’t get much love these days from classic rock radio, but the recently-reissued 50th anniversary edition of Bridge of Sighs is befitting the guitarist’s royal stature. Available as a two-LP vinyl set or four-CD box with demos and alternative takes, I opted for the vinyl set and was quite chuffed…the remastered sound adds depth and resonance to the recordings, and the classic songs really leap out of your speakers.

The second LP offers a May 1974 live show from The Record Plant in Sausalito, the band playing Bridge of Sighs in its entirety along with a pair of other songs – “Alethea,” which would appear on For Earth Below and “Rock Me Baby,” from the debut. The sound on the live disc isn’t as good, but the performance is fire, and special mention should be made of bassist/vocalist James Dewar, who brought a grounded confidence and immense soulfulness to balance Trower’s otherworldly instrumental trips. (Chrysalis Records, released March 7th, 2024)

Buy the vinyl from Amazon: Robin Trower’s Bridge of Sighs [50th Anniversary Edition]

Grapefruit Records’ Looking At the Pictures In the Sky celebrates 1968!

Everybody is just so jazzed up because this year is the 50th anniversary of 1967, the vaunted “summer of love.” Well, kiddies, the year is officially 75% over and done with and while that still leaves roughly three months to celebrate the hedonistic excesses of ’67, a new year is right around the corner. The good folks at U.K. archival specialists Grapefruit Records must agree, ‘cause they already have their eyes on the semicentennial of 1968...

On September 29th, 2017 here in the USA, Grapefruit will release Looking At the Pictures In the Sky, a three-disc anthology of British psychedelic rock that features 77 tracks and rocks an almost four-hour running time. The set is packaged in a cool clambox and includes a 44-page booklet brimming over with biographical information and rare photographs of the artists featured. Best of all, the set is budget-priced – selling on Amazon.com for $19.99 as of this writing – a bargain considering the tonnage of music included.

And just what, exactly, will you hear on Looking At the Pictures In the Sky? Well, among the 77 tracks here, you’ll find a number of the ‘usual suspects’ like the Move (“Omnibus”), the Crazy World of Arthur Brown (“Spontaneous Apple Creation”), the Pretty Things (“Talking About the Good Times”), and Procol Harum (“In the Wee Small Hours of Sixpence”) offering lesser-known, lysergic-drenched tunes released in 1968.

The set also includes songs from a number of cult bands whose early singles demand platinum-prices from collectors, bands like the Fire (“Father’s Name Is Dad”), Tuesday’s Children (“She”), the Spectrum (“Music Soothes the Savage Breast”), the Alan Bown (“For Your Thoughts”), Andy Ellison (“Cornflake Zoo”), Blonde On Blonde (“Country Life”), and Skip Bifferty (“Round and Round”).

Grapefruit Records has also dug up some truly hard-to-find, bona fide psych-rock classics for Looking At the Pictures In the Sky, rare 45s by bands like Fleur de Lys, the Barrier, the Factory, the Glass Menagerie, Rupert’s People, and Mike Stuart Span that are virtually unknown outside of the rabid psych collectors’ community. Throw in a handful of singles by unlikely candidates like the Spencer Davis Group (“Time Seller”), Status Quo (“Technicolor Dreams”), Graham Gouldman (“Upstairs Downstairs”), and the Marmalade (“Mr. Lion”) as well as the rarity “Aeroplane,” the flip-side of the debut single by Jethro Tull (credited incorrectly to ‘Jethro Toe’) and what you have is a mind-blowing collection of cult classics, obscure B-sides, and unreleased treasures of British psychedelia circa ’68!

Looking At the Pictures In the Sky is a sequel, of sorts, to Grapefruit’s critically-acclaimed 2016 box set I’m A Freak, Baby: A Journey Through the British Heavy Psych and Hard Rock Underground Scene 1968-72 (check out the Rev’s review). The label’s efforts in preserving this creative era of rock ‘n’ roll history is a godsend for those of us who can’t spend $1,000 on a rare single. Check out the full tracklist of Looking At the Pictures In the Sky on the Grapefruit Records website and use the link below to order your copy from Amazon.com…your ears will thank me later.

Buy the box set from Amazon.com: Various Artists - Looking At the Pictures In the Sky 

Procol Harum Is "Back On Black" This June!

The good folks at Back On Black and Let Them Eat Vinyl have been reissuing classic slabs o’ rock ‘n’ roll history on glorious, inky-black vinyl records in the U.S. and Canada for nearly five years now. Each LP release is stamped onto heavyweight vinyl for the best sound quality possible, and many titles are available in a variety of colors with the rabid collector in mind.

On June 16th, 2015 Let Them Eat Vinyl will reissue a large chunk of Procol Harum’s catalog on vinyl for the first time in nearly a quarter-century. Among the Procol Harum titles receiving the deluxe vinyl treatment are 1971’s classic Broken Barricades, 1973’s Grand Hotel, the following year’s Exotic Birds and Fruit, Procol’s Ninth (1975), and Something Magic (1977). The band’s 2003 reunion album The Well’s On Fire will be released on vinyl for the first time, as will Procol’s commercial breakthrough, 1972’s Live In Concert With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and the 2004 archive release Live At The Union Chapel.

Of these vinyl reissues, Broken Barricades remains my personal favorite. The band’s fifth album and its last to feature guitarist Robin Trower, it features the classic Procol Harum line-up of singer/pianist Gary Brooker, keyboardist/bassist Chris Copping, drummer B.J. Wilson, and lyricist Keith Reid. It was Live In Concert With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, which spawned the Top 20 hit single “Conquistador,” which would become the band’s highest-charting (#5 U.S.) and best-selling album.

The band had a hard time following up their live disc’s overwhelming success, however – although Grand Hotel rose to #21 on the chart, it included no hit singles, and Exotic Birds and Fruit struggled to hit #86 on the chart at the time of its release. Procol’s Ninth fared somewhat better, yielding a minor U.K. hit in “Pandora’s Box,” but after the poor showing of Something Magic, the band broke up. Although best known for their chart-topping 1967 classic “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” all of these 1970s-era Procol Harum albums have their charms. Now, a new generation of fans can rediscover this great music the way that the Reverend first heard it – on vinyl!

Buy the vinyl from Amazon.com:

Broken Barricades

Live In Concert With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra

Grand Hotel

Exotic Birds & Fruit

Procol's Ninth

Something Magic