Robin Trower - 'Bridge of Sighs' (50th Anniversary Edition)

 

Whenever I hear Robin Trower's 'Bridge of Sighs' album, I think of my friend Kathy, who I met at a Dead show in the early 1970s.  Kathy was a real character who grew up in a traveling circus, where her parents were sideshow "mind readers".  She earned her living as an Astrologer, and made expensive astrological birth charts for well-heeled New Yorkers.

Kathy put ads in The Village Voice (a weekly New York alternative newspaper) for her astrology business, and would rent a small reception spaces in hotels throughout midtown Manhattan.  There she'd ply her trade to people who thought astrology just might be final word in matters of destiny.  I witnessed several of these soirées, she served her perspective clients cheap wine served out of expensive decanters and mediocre cheeses on ornate serving platters.  While the people were drinking wine and eating cheese, Kathy worked the room.  She would get their names and have a brief conversation with each and every guest.  Afterward, she'd have them joind hands around her in a circle, where she'd announce that after the brief conversations she knew everyone's astrological sign.  Then she would go around the circle, remembering all their names and telling them what their astrological sign was.  Kathy never made a wrong guess, once I saw her guess the signs of forty people, and all forty dumbstruck people wanted her to do their astrological birth chart.

I lost touch with Kathy in the 1980s, when she moved to Las Vegas, became a magician's assistant, and then had her own psychic lounge act as "Katherine Cayce", and implied she was a direct descendant of clairvoyant Edgar Cayce, this of course (among many other things), was bunkum.

The last I heard about Kathy was through a mutual friend, in the early 1990s, who informed me Kathy had been indicted on credit card and wire fraud charges in Las Vegas.  [You'd think she would have seen that coming, right? - Ed.]

I know what you're thinking: so what does this have to do with Robin Trower?  Well, Kathy drove an old Volkswagen Beetle she named "Lilly", after her deceased grandmother, who she inherited the car from.  The ashtray was filled with cigarette butts and three-quarter smoked joints.  It also was fitted with an 8-track player [the biggest loser in the history of musical media - Ed.], and in the player was 'Bridge of Sighs', which seemed to be the only 8-track cartridge in the car.  So every time you got in Kathy's car, you heard 'Bridge of Sighs'.  Oh, and the cartridge changed tracks during my favorite part of "Too Rolling Stoned".

Robin Trower made his reputation playing the guitar for Procol Harum during their glory years, before jumping ship to join a short-lived band called Jude.  When Jude failed to secure a recording contract, Robin split, and took bassist and lead singer James Dewar with him.  He then recruited Reg Isidore to play drums, and presto, the Robin Trower band was born.  1974’s 'Bridge of Sighs' was their second release, and their most successful by leaps and bounds.

Today's freeload is the 50th anniversary edition, which is a 3 CD set.

• CD 1 is the original 1974 album, remastered in 2024 and it sounds excellent.
• CD 2 is a new 2024 stereo mix, plus outtakes and rarities.
• CD 3 is Live At The Record Plant, in Saulsalito,  CA on the 29th May 1974. This has been widely bootlegged over the years, but not with this audio quality.

For the freeload, what is your astrological sign?