Trapeze, mostly unknown to the casual rock fan these days, was the ultimate workhorse of a band during the 1970's. They defied the odds, boiling down to one original band member before finally disbanding, surviving losses that would have killed off much better-known groups. Hot Wire comes on the heels of one of these losses, a particularly painful one because by all indications the band seems to be on the verge of breaking out.
I noticed that of all the Trapeze reviews here, none are from the Glenn Hughes era (the first three albums), though he does lend his vocal talents to the 1976 second self-titled album. These three albums are probably the most highly regarded of the bunch, though none of them made a dent in the charts, and perhaps the love comes from fans of the band Glenn went on to join, Deep Purple. By the final album, he had taken such a dominant role, it was hard to imagine a Trapeze without Hughes. By his last days in the band he was handling all vocals, and even providing guitar accompaniment to regular guitarist Mel Galley, with a session bass player hired for live shows.
When Hughes joined Deep Purple, the original Trapeze, once a five-man band, was down to just two: Galley, and drummer Dave Holland. At first this appeared to kill the band, unless calling your first greatest hits package The Final Swing was some kind of inside joke. When the collection became the band's first appearance ever in the charts, Galley and Holland probably started thinking that news of the band's death was a bit premature, and suddenly the notion of a fourth album, minus Glenn, didn't seem entirely implausible.
The four-man lineup idea in those final live shows must have still appealed and even though it wasn't the same guy, Pete Wright was brought on board to handle bass, while the missing second guitarist, which Hughes briefly served as, went to Rob Kendrick. Neither one, as far as I know, could sing, so Galley pulled himself out of vocal retirement to fill that role. Going into the fourth album it looked like all of Glenn's old roles were filled as best could be hoped.
The result, Hot Wire, is a vastly different album than either of the first three. Of course, the first three among themselves didn't sound like each other (one gentle, one hard, one funky), but Hot Wire expanded on the jam-based songs contributed by Galley and his brother Tom for the previous album. None of the songs have the kind of depth that Hughes could pour into his own songwriting, but, as evidenced by live recordings from around 1975 onward, the songs would become staples of their performances, capable of being stretched out to crazy lengths and still sounding fresh. Even with Hughes gone, Galley could still show off some funky chops, with "Midnight Flyer" being, without question, the song of the album that probably made Glenn wish he hadn't left so hastily.
I think if I read my liner notes back in the day correctly, Hot Wire was the only "regular" album by the band to see any action in the charts, albeit the very low parts of the chart. I'm not sure if the slow build over the first three albums finally drove enough interest to convince buyers to invest disc-unheard. If so, it may have been a bit of a shock with all the changes. Or perhaps there was enough interest thanks to the bands new connections with more prominent rock outfits like Purple. However it was pretty much all downhill from this point and not in the good way. An abortive reunion with Hughes in 1976 left things awkward with the new guys and soon Kendrick was out, and, weirdly, assembled his own rival version of Trapeze based in Texas. Pete Goalby replaced him and brought a new voice for the 1979 album Hold On. When that album failed to reverse the slide, drummer Dave Holland jumped ship for Judas Priest and the band was further reduced to more session-grade players, and Galley's departure to Whitesnake ended things once and for all.
For awhile this album and the one to follow (the second self-titled album) were very hard to find thanks to a cut-rate distributor suddenly vanishing without warning. However, I'm happy to report both have made it to the world of digital music and at a very agreeable price.
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