A look into the musical world of Trevor Rabin: composer, performer, and a man of many careers.
Introduction:
A series of essays wherein I explore the numerous musical identities of my favorite musician: from child prodigy to teen idol to guitar hero to singer/songwriter to award-winning in-demand film composer.
Featuring news/updates and commentary/analysis of Trevor's career and associated projects. Comments are disabled but please feel free to contact me at rabinesque.blog@gmail.com.
Trevor is this year's recipient of the ABSA Special and Extraordinary Talent Award, awarded by the South African Jewish Report publication/website. Trevor accepted the award via simulcast from Los Angeles, as noted in this article: https://www.sajr.co.za/rockstars-sing-trevor-rabins-praises/
An article in the special issue profiling this year's winners notes that Trevor is currently at work on composing a symphony and creates digital artwork "for fun" (as evidenced by the cover of Rio).
Another comment, in regards to his time with ARW, he states "That was the last time I performed," which seems to possibly confirm what some fans (including myself) have come to suspect: that Trevor is essentially enacting a "soft" retirement from live performance, at the very least.
One of a series which examines Trevor’s musical career in South Africa.
(Author's note: this essay was originally written in 2020.)
For those collectors who are constantly on the lookout for uncommon items, the four early Rabbitt singles are among the rarest of finds. Even my South African connection hasn't been able to track any of them down for me, although fans have been treated to a couple uploads on YouTube: the original version of "Locomotive Breath" as well as "Backdoor of My Heart."
However, with one of those - "Hallelujah Sunshine" - we can at least listen to a version which half of Rabbitt also performed on, and it appears on Margaret Singana's 1977 album Tribal Fence.
You probably want to stop me at this point to note: "But those songs have two different titles!" This is true, but I believe that Rabbitt's version may have been retitled thanks to government censorship. And if it sounds like too much of a stretch for credulity's sake, I will state that two songs which contain hallelujah as the first word of a two-word title both credited as being written by someone with the surname of Campbell? What are the odds?!
Continuing with my assertion, the song is actually titled "Hallelujah Freedom" - written and originally performed by Junior Campbell, a Scottish singer/songwriter who had a hit in the UK and Europe with the song in 1972. Rabbitt's version was recorded and released in 1973. Viewing the production credit, I'd say it's a fair assumption that Mutt Lange produced the session.
Margaret's version was recorded for Tribal Fence featuring Trevor on guitar, bass, keyboards and backing vocals, Neil Cloud on drums, with additional guitar and percussion by Julian Laxton and additional backing vocals by Rene Veldsman with Avril and Miriam Stockley. Trevor arranged and co-produced the track.
And why would the South African government censor such a song? In 1973 it was standard practice for anything which could be considered remotely objectionable, just as they censored Rabbitt's first version of "Locomotive Breath." Specifically, when you consider the song's lyrics - which portray an oppressive situation - well, I would say it's fairly obvious that they would seek to suppress anything which could possibly be construed as political.
Oh, they took away the love inside me
that memory will always ride me.
They broke my heart and I could not stand the pain.
Oh, they tried to make me crawl behind them
they even tried to break my mind in
they grabbed my pride and they threw it in my face.
But seriously, listen to the song and when you get to the chorus, substitute "sunshine" for "freedom" and it works just fine. I don't believe it's out of the realm of possibility to posit that the government considered freedom a dirty word at the time.
It's a perfect fit for Margaret's proud and powerful voice, and from the arrangement I would say it's probably rather close to Rabbitt's version, though perhaps a bit more on the pop side of things. The way all the voices sing out the closing refrain of just gimme freedom is an inspiring message of protest to conclude this album with, a work which acknowledged there were two worlds in South Africa, and one of them was on "the other side of the fence."
But the significance of the song - how it can speak to any situation of struggle - means it's easy to understand why Trevor performed it more than once in the course of his career, and directed it at a nation which needed to hear its' message as many times as it could be expressed.
In the new issue of PROG (Marillion on the cover), is an article regarding the making of Talk, featuring interviews with surviving YesWest members Trevor, Tony Kaye, and Jon Anderson. This issue is on-sale now in all the usual places.
Thanks to a tip-off from a regular reader...this is an upload - I believe - of a track from one of the Lekker Kitaar albums which Trevor recorded under his Trevor Terblanche pseudonym. Most of that material is instrumental, so it's still my best guess as to the actual source, since this features Trevor also singing the song in question which does appear to be based on John Lennon's cover (from the Rock n'Roll release) of Ben E. King's 1961 classic in terms of arrangement. It is worth noting that all three of those albums each had a Beatles-related song included in the tracklist.
Announced today (although I will say that I had received word of this a couple months back) is a long-awaited re-release for Talk, the 1994 album which marked the last time we would hear the full YesWest lineup on record.
It's wonderful to see this "lost" classic get the full archival treatment, from a very interestingly titled distributor, Spirit of Unicorn Music. The release is scheduled for May 24th on vinyl and CD, featuring a bonus disc of edits, demos, and instrumental versions as well as a full live show from the Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center in Canandaguia, New York on June 19th, 1994.
The press release contains one particular piece of information which is historically interesting:
Talk was also one of the first albums to be recorded and edited entirely digitally, without using traditional audio tape. It was a groundbreaking move at the time, but the technology, as advanced as it was, was not without its problems. In January 1994, Northridge in the San Fernando Valley in California was hit by an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter Scale, and production had to be halted as the early Apple Mac computers they were working on were being affected by the tremors. To put the technology into context now, in its unedited form, Talk took up 34GB of memory, which today could be transferred via a flash drive in seconds.
I imagine there were any number of albums being recorded at the time which were affected by the Northridge Quake but another which has been publicly documented is The Black Crowes' third album Amorica, also released in 1994.
And this is a perfect time to get into the Talk frame of mind with my essay on the album from 2016.
Announced today is the release date for Joe Bonamassa's new Live at the Hollywood Bowl, presenting the show from 2023 which featured orchestral arrangements from Trevor as well as David Campbell and Jeff Bova.
The release will encompass the following formats: CD/DVD, CD/BR, 2 LP Vinyl (180-gram), and digital streaming/purchase and is on sale May 17th.
