Magical Moment Photos

PAT TRAVERS ROCKING OUT IN SEATTLE, WA. ON 2-23-78. PHOTO/ART BY BEN UPHAM.

Pat Travers-
“Standing on the Threshold of Rock Stardom”
by Andy Mellon
Winnipeg free Press
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
January 21, 1978

Recent years have seen the emergence of a growing number of hot Canadian rock guitarists capable of holding their own alongside their many talented American and European contemporaries.
In addition to veteran axemen like Domenic Troiano and Walter Rossi, whose latest studio albums contain some of their most inspired playing to date, this country has begun to develop a solid nucleus of exciting young players.
Both Alex Lifeson of Rush and Rik Emmitt of Triumph have been commanding considerable attention outside of Canada, while several other lesserknown guitarists are finally beginning to make a name for themselves.
Pat Travers’ reputation is already well-established among many Winnipeg hard rock funs. Although he hardly qualifies as a household name elsewhere, the Ottawa-born guitarist has been building a loyal following simultaneously in North America and Europe the past couple of years.
Travers left Canada several years back and relocated in London, England. He eventually assembled his current band, which consists of drummer Nicko McBrain and bassist Peter “Mars” Cowling, landed a recording contract and quickly released a pair of records, “Pat Travers” and “Makin’ Magic”.
With the release of his third album, “Putting It Straight”, Travers stands on the threshold of stardom. From the opening “Life In London”, a timely commentary on the current British scene, through the final notes of “Dedication”, this talented 23 year old puts everything he has into every track.
“Life In London” is a sheer blast of energy with some fiery guitar work and a tough, gritty vocal which is astonishingly reminiscent of the great Johnny Winter. It also provides ample evidence of Travers’ dramatic improvement as a songwriter in general and as a lyricist in particular on lines like “Life in London is bittersweet, Spray canned slogans along the street, Some kind of revolution in the town, Oh razor blades and safety pins you look like a clown. What’s going down, It’s just the same old sounds, You know that energy has always been the drug for me . . . ”
Travers and the band set a relentless, pace on fast-paced rockers like “Runnln’ From The Future” and funky, blues-flavored numbers such as Gettin’ Betta”.
He’s joined by Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham for some lively guitar interplay on “Speakeasy”, and gets in plenty of flashy playing on an instrumental called “Off Beat Ride”.
Now that he has upgraded his material (all eight selections are Travers originals) to the point of respectability, there’s no doubt In my mind that Pat Travers is well pn his way to a place of prominence in the hearts of hard rock fans everywhere.
Travers spent much of the latter part of 1977 in and, around. Toronto, which will serve as the base for a full-scale assault in North America, which should be starting up very soon. Here’s hoping that his extensive tour schedule will include his first-ever Winnipeg appearance.

PAT TRAVERS BAND DISCOGRAPHY:
1976 Pat Travers
1977 Makin’ Magic
1977 Putting It Straight
1978 Heat In The Street
1978 The Pat Travers You Missed Mini-Album (EP)
1979 Live! Go for What You Know (live 1978)
1980 Crash and Burn
1981 Radio Active
1982 Black Pearl
1984 Hot Shot
1990 School Of Hard Knocks
1991 Boom Boom (live 1990)
1992 BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert (live 1977 & 1980)
1992 Blues Tracks
1993 Just A Touch
1994 Blues Magnet
1995 Halfway To Somewhere
1996 Lookin’ Up
1997 King Biscuit Flower Hour (live 1984)
1998 Blues Tracks 2
2000 Don’t Feed The Alligators
2000 Boom Boom – Live At The Diamond Club 1990 (CD & DVD)
2003 Etched In Stone (2-CD live 2002)
2003 P.T. Power Trio
2003 From The Front…Live! (DVD-Audio live 1984)
2005 PT=MC2
2006 P.T. Power Trio 2
2007 Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights) (live)
2008 Stick With What You Know – Live In Europe (live 2007)
2009 Travelin’ Blues

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO SEE PAT TRAVERS PHOTOS:
PAT TRAVERS PHOTOS BY BEN UPHAM

PAT TRAVERS MAKING ROCK & ROLL MAGIC IN SEATTLE, WA. ON 2-23-78. PHOTO BY BEN UPHAM.

PAT TRAVERS
“MAKES GUITAR MAGIC”
BY ROB PATTERSON
THE INDIANA GAZETTE
INDIANA, PENNSYLVANIA
APRIL 22, 1978

“You can’t deny them their rock and roll. It’s like something really sacred, which is great to see.” His black, shoulder-length hair drenched with the sweat of a rousing show. Canadian guitarist Pat Travers explains what it’s like to play for the great insatiable audiences of the American South.
Travers knows what they want, which is why this boyishly handsome 23 year old is being hailed as “the next guitar superstar”. Unlike much of the leaden-lick Buffalo-belch boogie which passes for music these days, Travers’ style is melodic hard rock — loping, yet wired with more red hot lines than Bell Tel. His playing possesses a fury arid finesse that rivals the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Robin Trower. And while Travers says he’s been playing since the age of 12 after one listen you’d swear he entered the world with a six-string in his hands.
It was Travers’ riffing reputation as a teenager in Toronto that earned him an invitation to play with the legendary Ronnie Hawkins. But it was a romantic vision of London as a rock and roll city that attracted Pat. Sensing this, a friend gave him plane fare and an encouraging boot on the butt, and in 1975 Pat Travers made his move. Though he found London rather dreary, Pat’s inspiration was still intact. With the aid of yet another “angel ” he assembled a band and cut the demo tapes which secured him a contract. His first album on Polydor — Pat Travers— had immediate chart and press success.
Pat was off and running. With the help of bassist Peter Cowling {more commonly called “Mars”) Pat’s power trio gained a following for combining grit and grandeur despite rotating membership. But as a song from his third album — “Putting it Straight” — declares: “Life in London was bittersweet.” Finally afraid of stagnating on the British scene, Pat has coincidentally followed the Hendrix footsteps from England back to North America to find his fans.
Like his friend Ronnie Hawkins, Pat’s power center lies in the South with the descendants of the roadhouse rockers who cheered on Hawkins and his Hawks (today known as the Band). With the addition to his group of ex-Black Oak Arkansas drummer Tommy Aldridge, whom Pat declares to be “the best drummer in rock,” and a star in his own right judging by the audience response to his introduction, Pat’s got the band to back him as he puts America Straight. It’s a job that keeps him busy. Travers is planning to
settle in Florida, but for now he says with a smile. “I’m nowhere. On the road and I have no place to live. I don’t have a house, or an apartment . . . a home; anything.
My girlfriend came in to New York last week from London, and she sold the car, packed up everything and let the apartment go. I keep leaving a trail of stuff wherever I go! I’ve got three stereos in various places, so — I want to buy a house this Summer. I don’t mind it so much because It’s gonna be over soon.”
The reasons for ending his wandering are simple. With an album that has a good shot at going gold, growing concert audiences and a talent that’s as natural as his easygoing manner, Pat Travers is as committed to his music as are his fans. You just can’t deny him his rock and roll.

PAT TRAVERS BAND DISCOGRAPHY:

1976 Pat Travers
1977 Makin’ Magic
1977 Putting It Straight
1978 Heat In The Street
1978 The Pat Travers You Missed Mini-Album (EP)
1979 Live! Go for What You Know (live 1978)
1980 Crash and Burn
1981 Radio Active
1982 Black Pearl
1984 Hot Shot
1990 School Of Hard Knocks
1991 Boom Boom (live 1990)
1992 BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert (live 1977 & 1980)
1992 Blues Tracks
1993 Just A Touch
1994 Blues Magnet
1995 Halfway To Somewhere
1996 Lookin’ Up
1997 King Biscuit Flower Hour (live 1984)
1998 Blues Tracks 2
2000 Don’t Feed The Alligators
2000 Boom Boom – Live At The Diamond Club 1990 (CD & DVD)
2003 Etched In Stone (2-CD live 2002)
2003 P.T. Power Trio
2003 From The Front…Live! (DVD-Audio live 1984)
2005 PT=MC2
2006 P.T. Power Trio 2
2007 Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights) (live)
2008 Stick With What You Know – Live In Europe (live 2007)
2009 Travelin’ Blues

CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO SEE PAT TRAVERS PHOTOS:
PAT TRAVERS PHOTOS BY BEN UPHAM

PAT TRAVERS IS "MAKIN' MAGIC" LIVE IN SEATTLE, WA. ON FEBRUARY 23, 1978. PHOTO BY BEN UPHAM.

PAT TRAVERS BAND-
“CANADIAN ROCKERS MAKES THE U.S. SCENE”
BY LARRY KELP
THE OAKLAND TRIBUNE
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA JUNE 24, 1977

For someone who wields his electric guitar like he’s trapped behind enemy lines and has to shoot his way out, Canadian rocker Pat Travers comes up with some funny statements, like: “I’m no guitar hero by any means, and don’t want to give that impression. I don’t know why audiences are so fascinated by the guitar; I always wanted to be a drummer myself.” The 22-year-old Canadian who moved to England to become popular is about ready to embark from New York on his first tour of the United States. Coming like an advance warning of his talent is his second album, “Makin’ Magic,” a straightforward rock record except for a couple of cuts. One in particular, “Stevie,” is quiet with many subtle studio effects. Impossible to duplicate live. Of course “Stevie’s” the one the radio stations picked up on, and in the Bay Area the FM stations are playing it to death.
Mildly surprised, Travers is also pleased, for if there’s one thing he wants to do it’s get rid of any preconceptions that listeners (and his record company, Polydor) have about him. To read the hype sheet Polydor puts out, you’d think Travers is a disciple of Jimi Hendrix, moving to England as Hendrix did a decade earlier, to build a power trio and conquer toe world with his guitar in hand.
No way, says the musician, “In fact, we were a three piece unit simply because it took till now to find another person who could play with us. We went through about 35 before California guitarist Ross Record joined. And I’d like to add another musician.”
Even so, be may be stuck when it comes to performing “Stevie” on his July American tour. And that’s what fans will want to hear. “On stage we do a fast paced 90-minute show of rock and roll. But I don’t know how we’ll do ‘Stevie’ because it’s all overdubbed studio work with guitars recorded at different speeds. I lost a few brain cells doing that one,” he laughs, “like in the middle there’s a section that sounds like a digital sequencer but really I was playing a guitar part over a rhythm track at half-speed which was then played back at normal speed. “The mixing was the most difficult part. I knew exactly how I wanted the piece to sound beforehand; it’s a song about my little brother and the result is fairly close to what I’d hoped to get, “Maybe we’ll have to use some pre-taped parts in the show and play along with them. The Who have had good luck doing that”.
Travers’ story so far sounds good, thanks to luck and insight (and talent): Born in Toronto, he took up guitar at 15, played for a few years in Ronnie Hawkins’ band (Hawkins, a gutsy rockabilly singer, gained fame as the man whose backup band became the Band), but in 1975 packed his guitar and headed for London, “Canada wasn’t conducive to my career, and while there were more opportunities in the States, I figured they probably didn’t need another hot shot guitarist at that point. Plus, he chuckles, “someone paid for my plane fare to England.”
Checking the ads in Melody Maker, (England’s Rolling Stone), he dug up a bassist and drummer, and spent his last pennies making a demo tape, which attracted his manager, David Hemmings, and led to a record contract.
The first album was done quickly, sounding like the group’s performance. For the next two years Travers and cohorts (drummer Nico McBrain and bassist Peter “Mars” Cowling played the clubs, doing five tours of that country and one of Europe. “I had no idea what I was doing when I first got to England”, he explains, “and it cost money to play in clubs. Only once, when we opened for the Troggs, did we see a profit. Bands play there for the exposure and to sell records.” European bands usually come to their first American tour hoping to attract enough attention to their music and records to bring them back as a headline act. Thanks to “Stevie,” Travers’ future looks good in the States.

PAT TRAVERS BAND DISCOGRAPHY:
1976 Pat Travers
1977 Makin’ Magic
1977 Putting It Straight
1978 Heat In The Street
1978 The Pat Travers You Missed Mini-Album (EP)
1979 Live! Go for What You Know (live 1978)
1980 Crash and Burn
1981 Radio Active
1982 Black Pearl
1984 Hot Shot
1990 School Of Hard Knocks
1991 Boom Boom (live 1990)
1992 BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert (live 1977 & 1980)
1992 Blues Tracks
1993 Just A Touch
1994 Blues Magnet
1995 Halfway To Somewhere
1996 Lookin’ Up
1997 King Biscuit Flower Hour (live 1984)
1998 Blues Tracks 2
2000 Don’t Feed The Alligators
2000 Boom Boom – Live At The Diamond Club 1990 (CD & DVD)
2003 Etched In Stone (2-CD live 2002)
2003 P.T. Power Trio
2003 From The Front…Live! (DVD-Audio live 1984)
2005 PT=MC2
2006 P.T. Power Trio 2
2007 Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights) (live)
2008 Stick With What You Know – Live In Europe (live 2007)
2009 Travelin’ Blues

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO SEE PAT TRAVERS BAND PHOTOS:
PAT TRAVERS BAND PHOTOS BY BEN UPHAM