* En anglais uniquement
While most bluesy hard rock acts of the '70s and '80s hailed from the United States, there were several exceptions to the rule. Canadian singer/guitarist/keyboardist
Pat Travers with his hard, edgy tone, rough and rowdy vocals, and barroom boogie aesthetic is a stellar example. Arriving during the reign of hard blues-rock guitar slingers such as
Johnny Winter,
George Thorogood, and
Robin Trower, his eight-album run for Polydor from the self-titled 1976 debut through 1984's
Hot Shot, netted seven Top 200 chart placements (all but one in the upper half) and two Top 40 singles, including the party anthem classic "Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights)." Subsequently, he placed four singles in the Hot 100, and two more -- including 1981's "New Age Music" and 1984's "Killer" in the upper rungs of the Mainstream Rock Songs charts. As evidenced by his catalog,
Travers is equally adept at playing funk and prog. One of rock & roll's bona fide road dogs, he has toured over 150 dates a year for more than 40 years. In the 21st century,
Travers has continued to record for a variety of labels in North America and Europe. Better known dates include 2003's
P.T. Power Trio, 2005's
Bazooka with drummer
Carmen Appice, and 2015's
Retro Rocket.
Born in Toronto on April 12, 1954,
Travers first picked up the guitar just prior to entering his teens after witnessing a local performance by the great
Jimi Hendrix. It wasn't long before
Travers was studying the other top rock guitarists of the day (
Eric Clapton,
Jeff Beck,
Jimmy Page, etc.), and paying his dues by playing in bar bands in Quebec. His first true touring gig came his way when he hooked up with '50s rock & roll vet
Ronnie Hawkins (best known for performing with a backing cast that would eventually transform into
the Band).
But
Travers' main love was hard rock, so after a year, he packed up his belongings and headed to London. Shortly after touchdown in the U.K.,
Travers recorded a demo that would land him a recording deal with Polydor and result in the release of his debut,
Pat Travers, during the spring of 1976. A performance at England's annual Reading Festival the same year only piqued further interest, which resulted in two more releases in 1977,
Makin' Magic and
Putting It Straight (both of which followed a pre-
Iron Maiden Nicko McBrain on drums), before
Travers returned to North America and set his sights on the U.S. rock market.
Featuring drummer
Tommy Aldridge, guitarist
Pat Thrall, and bassist Mars Cowling, the new
Travers band lineup premiered on 1979's
Heat in the Street. This led to
Travers' most commercially successful period, resulting in a pair of Top 30 releases, 1979's
Live! Go for What You Know (considered by many
Travers fans to be his finest hour) and 1980's
Crash and Burn. But soon after the dawn of the '80s, bluesy hard rock seemed to quickly fall out of favor among the U.S. record buying public, in favor of slickly produced arena rock, and later, MTV-approved bands.
As a result, each subsequent
Travers release sold less, as his last albums to appear on the U.S. album charts included 1981's
Radio Active, 1982's
Black Pearl, and 1984's
Hot Shot. Unhappy with Polydor,
Travers opted to take a break from releasing albums for the remainder of the decade, but continued to tour.
Travers' 1990 comeback album, School of Hard Knocks, failed to re-spark interest on the charts, although he continued to issue new studio albums (Blues Tracks,
Just a Touch,
Blues Magnet, etc.) and archival live sets (King Biscuit Flower Hour, BBC Radio One Live in Concert) throughout the decade.
Travers continues to tour and record regularly (playing alongside the likes of
Night Ranger's
Jeff Watson,
Cinderella's
Tom Keifer, and
Rick Derringer), and in 2001, performed as part of the Voices of Classic Rock tour.
Travers emerged from the recording studio once more in 2003, with
P.T. Power Trio, a recording that featured covers of songs by the likes of
Cream ("White Room"),
Robin Trower ("Day of the Eagle"), and
ZZ Top ("Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings"), among others. Subsequent releases include 2004's It Takes a Lot of Balls, a collaboration with
Carmine Appice, PT=MC2 (2005), a second
Power Trio outing called
P.T. Power Trio 2 (2006),
Travelin' Blues (2009),
Blues on Fire (2012), Can Do (2013), and
Retro Rocket (2015). In 2016,
Travers reunited with
Appice for the cheekily titled
Balls Album, which saw the dynamic duo tearing through a set of classic blues-rock numbers. In 2019,
Travers went well outside his musical persona by issuing
Swing!, a collection of thoroughly reimagined big-band jazz classics from the '40s and '50s including
Duke Ellington's "Take the 'A' Train,"
Louis Prima's "Sing Sing Sing!,"
Glenn Miller's "In the Mood,"
Louis Jordan's "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby," and "Let the Good Times Roll." ~ Greg Prato