Pat Travers - Blues (1994)

Pat Travers is a Canadian singer/guitarist, who made one of he best hard rock albums of the 70's with 'Makin' Magic'. Growing up in Toronto, he picked up the guitar at age 12, and began playing in bands in his early teens, and it was while playing in one of these, Merge, that he caught the attention of rock artist Ronnie Hawkins, who invited him to join his band. In his early twenties Travers moved to London and signed a recording contract with the Polydor label, and his eponymous debut album was released in 1976. It was classic hard rock of the period, with Travers' raucous vocals and raunchy guitar being ably backed by a driving rhythm section of bassist Peter 'Mars' Cowling and drummer Roy Dyke. Cowling would become a mainstay in Travers' band for several years, but Dyke was later replaced on the drum-stool by Nicko McBrain, who stayed for a few years before moving on to later find fame with Iron Maiden. 'Makin' Magic' was released the following year, which was my introduction to the band, and during 1977 Travers added a second guitarist, changed drummers twice, and by the time 'Heat in the Street' was released in 1978 had put together the Pat Travers Band. 
One of the highlights of 'Makin' Magic' was his cover of the blues classic 'Statesboro Blues', and as I've always felt that the blues gives guitarists room to produce some of their best work, I wondered if there were any other blues tracks on his albums that would go well with that one to make a purely blues album that I could enjoy. It turns out that there weren't actually that many from his early work, but I did find a few excellent tracks on albums from the 90's that I could add to them, and eventually came up with a quite superb 40 minute blues album from the band. He obviously has a love of the genre, as he's released two albums himself called 'Blues Tracks' (1992) and 'Blues Tracks 2' (1998), comprising new recordings of old blues songs, but I wanted to hear him at his peak in the 70's and 80's, along with those few songs from his return to form in the early 90's, and they make up a really outstanding blues-rock album. If you like this then do check out the two 'Blues Tracks' albums as they are well worth hearing.  

Track listing

01 Statesboro Blues (1977)
02 You Shouldn't Have Hurt Me (1994)
03 Too Cool Woman Blues (1993)
04 The Pain (1993)
05 This World We Live In (1994)
06 Born Under A Bad Sign (1980)
07 (I Just Want To) Live It My Way (1981)