U.K. Magazine "Classic Rock"
June 2001 at the stands
Under the title " Classic Riffs"
"Bridge Of Sighs" by Robin Trower
Released in 1974, the
'Bridge Of Sighs ' album put ex-Procol Harum guitarist Robin Trower well
and truely on the map as a solo artist - and the majestic title track was
undoubtedly the piece de resistance. Not that there was ever any chance
of it failing. " We performed it live before I'd finished the lyric. The
first time, at Winterland in San Francisco, it got a standing ovation.
So we knew we had something." The forbodding guitar riff which backs the
verse had been kicking around for six months before Trower got the chorus
'turnaround' He then looked for a "title of doom" to fit the music, finding
it in the sports pages of a newspaper. ' Bridge Of Sighs To Win' read the
headline, and he was off and running!
The basic three-piece
formatTrower favoured, reminiscent of chief inspiration Jimi Hendrix, was
no hinderance in the studio, where he applied considerable trickery to
get a suitably spooky atmosphere built around the song. " The wind was
a library sound-effect, but the chiming sound was created with wind chimes,
speeding the tape up (while recording) so it slowed down when plated at
normal speed, little things like that."
After considerable
guitar overdubbing, the final touch was some backwards reading from Trower
- not Satanic messages (or racing results), but "something out of a science
magazine about lunar missions if I remember it rightly."
To round things off,
the track it seques into (In This Place) is " an orchestrated guitar thing
which is a bit of a nick from '1983 (A Merman I should Turn To Be) , one
of my favorite Hendrix tracks."
Trower is still very
much in business as his new album Go My Way
shows,
though exclusively stateside these days. Sadly his current rendition of
"Bridge Of Sighs" lacks the smokey vocal of Jimmy Dewar, the singer/ bassist
who appeared on the origional version. "He had a stroke several years ago
and has been incapacitated ever since. It's very, very sad indeed, and
a great loss to music."
Knowing this somehowmakes
the doom laden lyric all the more poignant........
Go to Paul Olsen page to read more about the cover artwork