Bridge - Crying For Love '2020

Tracks list

Considering the quality of the vocalists, instrumentalists, and songwriters who
comprised Bridge, the Oakland/Berkeley, California septet should have been big.
Dissension within the group and conflicts with producers doomed the band, which
spent four weeks in Boulder, Colorado in 1981 cutting an album for Ilene
Berns’ CBS distributed Bang label that never saw the light of day. Now,
after nearly 20 years in mothballs, comes a collection of the demos that helped
the group land the Bang deal. These selections reveal a sophisticated fusion of
soul, jazz, rock, and latin elements that placed Bridge well ahead of its time.

Bridge evolved from Vitamin E, a short-lived band that cut a terrific album for
Buddha in 1977 titled Sharing. Produced by Norman Connors, the disc featured the
male/female vocal frontline of David Gardner and Lady Bianca, with Oakland soul
veteran Freddie Hughes (best known for his 1968 hit Send My Baby Back »)
contributing his multi octave pipes to the title track.
Leader and drummer Paul Tillman Smith supplied the songs. Born in Oakland in
1947, Smith has an impressive list of sideman credits, including work with Jimmy
McCracklin, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Sonny Simmons, and Michael White. Although
he considers himself primarily a jazz drummer, he began writing pop songs in the
early 70’s as another creative outlet. Smith’s tunes have been
recorded by such artists as Cold Blood, Norman Connors, Pharaoh Sanders, Phyllis
Hyman, Jean Carne and Webster Lewis.

When Sharing failed to have much commercial impact, the group began falling
apart. Gardner quickly lost interest, and Bianca left to work with Sly Stone,
then Frank Zappa. Finding a replacement for Gardner was easy. Smith turned to
Freddie Hughes’ 18 year old son Derick, whose previous experience had
been confined largely to church but whose vocal virtuosity rivaled that of his
father. Locating a female vocalist was harder. Smith had been hearing about
Debravon Lewis for a couple of years but had been unable to locate her. «
Everybody was telling me she could sing, so I knew she was the one, Smith
recalls. « I hadn’t even heard her. I take musicians’ words for
things. When I finally heard her, I said, ‘Yeah, she’s badd, but
how does she sound on tape? Lewis turned out to be, in Smith’s
estimation, One of the finest recording vocalists.

Another key new member was percussionist and songwriter Jon Bendich, who was
only 21 at the time he joined, but had already spent two years on the road as a
member of keyboardist Rodney Franklin’s band. Smith and Bendich formed a
production company and began working on the demos contained on this CD.
Completing the core group were keyboardist Michael Robinson, guitarist Pat
Duffey and bassist Adrian Barrios. Freddie Hughes remained a peripheral member
and herein offers a tour de force reading of Listen, a Smith composition later
covered by Norman Connors.

Smith hated the name Vitamin E, which Connors’ wife had picked. With the
new line-up in place, Smith and Bendich came up with their own. Bridge was a
conscious name choice, Bendich explains. We were trying to bridge all styles and
markets, we were trying to be universal, like Earth, Wind & Fire or Stevie
Wonder.
Bridge spent two years playing around the San Fransisco Bay Area before landing
a deal with Bang Records. An ongoing after hours engagement at Ivey’s in
Oakland often featured Smith’s friend Pharaoh Sanders as a member of the
band.

The Bang deal proved to be Bridge’s undoing. Arguments over money broke
out on the flight to Boulder. After their arrival, Smith and Bendich discovered
that they weren’t going to get to produce the album themselves. Engineer
Dwayne Scott and Malaco studio drummer turned, Nashville producer James Stroud
had been tired for the task. They didn’t make any real effort to
accommodate us Bendich says of the producers. It was like, we know how to make
records, and you guys sit back and take notes. Before the project was completed,
most members of Bridge had been sent back to Oakland. The producers brought in
keyboardist Barry Beckett, guitarist Jimmy Johnson and bassist David Hood in
from Muscle Shoals to complete the project, Stroud played drums himself.

Although Bang had spent $65,000 on the Bridge album, it was never released. The
band soon collapsed, though Rosie Gaines filled in for Lewis briefly. Lewis
changed her name to Fizzy Qwick and recorded an album with a group called Tiggi
Clay for Motown’s Morocco subsidiary in 1984 and an album of her own for
Motown proper two years later before abandoning music. Derick Hughes went on to
sign with both Motown and Prince’s NPG label, but nothing was ever
released. Today he spends much of his time with various touring gospel musical
theatre productions. Derick was amazing, like a young Donny Hathaway, so
spiritual, so pure! Bendich says of Hughes’ performances on disc, And
Debra had a way of letting her vulnerability come through. When we were
producing her in the studio, you felt everything that she was singing. There
wasn’t any faking, and the tone that she had, Debra would make us cry!.

Now, at long last, the world can hear Bridge the way Smith and Bendich intended
in the first place.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Bridge - Crying For Love (4:17) 
1.02 - Bridge - Stella (3:36) 
1.03 - Bridge - From The Darkness To The Light (4:17) 
1.04 - Bridge - Fire Burning (3:33) 
1.05 - Bridge - Waiting Patiently (3:47) 
1.06 - Bridge - He Say, She Say Game (3:15) 
1.07 - Bridge - Sweet & Wonderful (4:00) 
1.08 - Bridge - Out There In Space (4:04) 
1.09 - Bridge - No Where Love Affair (4:36) 
1.10 - Bridge - Rivers Of Love (3:11) 
1.11 - Bridge - Turn To Love (3:48) 
1.12 - Bridge - Next To Me (4:05) 
1.13 - Bridge - Reach Out (4:29) 
1.14 - Bridge - Listen (4:03) 
1.15 - Bridge - Summer Sky (3:52) 
1.16 - Bridge - Loves In Your Corner (3:34)

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