Pat Travers has been playing blistering blues/rock guitar on the international music scene for three decades. Although he has never attained the success of Stevie Ray Vaughn orEric Clapton, he has had a very accomplished career supported by a base of incredibly loyal fans and critics.
Travers first emerged in 1976 (in between the eras of Robin Trower and Stevie Ray Vaughn) and was considered one of the hottest axemen on the scene, especially during the early '80s. Travers got hooked on rock 'n' roll at the same time as millions of others did. "I guess the first time I saw The Beatles and The Rolling Stones on the Ed Sullivan Show, I decided this is what I wanted to do. It was the excitement. That whole thing of being special appealed to me. I wanted to be respected as a musician."
But a turning point came in March, 1968, when Travers stood near the stage at an electrifying performance of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. At the show, Travers fought the crowd to grab a piece of Hendrix's smashed Stratocaster, which he threw out to the audience after performing "Wild Thing." Travers never got a piece of the guitar, but in the process, he did get an instant addiction to making live rock 'n' roll.
Travers continued to build his popularity with a series of solid, rock albums that included Makin' Magic and Putting It Straight (1977), Heat in the Street (1978) and the live LP Go For What You Know (1979). He recorded his final four albums for Polydor in the early and mid-1980s, before leaving the label in 1985, when it shifted its focus to techno-rock. Travers continued to tour, but did not return to recording until 1992, when he signed as a contemporary blues artist with the L.A. based Shrapnel Records.
He has recently reemerged in the blues/rock community with a number of reasonably successful releases - Blues Tracks (1992) and Just a Touch (1993) - and has also appeared on tribute albums to Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughn, in addition to Extreme's Pornografitti album.
These days, Travers continues to work with drummer Aynsley Dunbar and, on occasion, old friend and former bassist Peter "Mars" Cowling. A testament to his longevity, in 2001 he embarked on a "Voices of Classic Rock" tour, and in 2003 released P.T. Power Trio, an album of rock covers.