I climbed the bridge over the Mississippi River in New Orleans with some grips from Cannon Films on Mothers Day at dawn in I think it was 1987. They called the group “The Urban Assault Team. I would like to hear from anyone who knows about this.

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4 Responses

  1. ardarvin Reply

    The chance of finding anyone else on here who participated with you on this is slim, but for the rest of us…we'd love to hear your account  :hick:

    I'm assuming you guys did it just for fun, not part of any film stunt?  Did you guys take any photos?

  2. Sonny Del-Rio Reply

    Well it’s kind of a long story but you say you would like to hear it…….. I was playing in a band called “Crowbar” with King Biscuit Boy….  we were playing at “Tipitinas” a rather infamous club in New Orleans. Some folks bought me a drink at the end of the night (3 am). Turns out they were shooting some swamp footage for a Cannon Film (Charles Bronson). They were grips from L.A. and belonged to a somewhat secret group called “Urban Assault” and they were going to scale the Mississippi Bridge at dawn. They asked me to come along. I said ” why don't I take a cab to the top and I will play my sax as you come over the railing or whatever”. (thinking Hollywood video).

     There was a young, up and coming, starlet with them. They said “if this little girl can do it so can you”. I was never one to turn down a dare (not to mention I was 3/4's drunk) so I agreed. We went back to their hotel room for some refreshment and they changed their clothes. We headed to the Mississippi River just as the sun was coming up. I had no idea what to expect.

     First we had to climb over a chain-link fence to get to the bridge property, this of course was all highly illegal.

    I was scared shitless at this point, but the Puruvian refreshments were kicking in so I was ready for anything. There was a ladder going up about 60 feet, surrounded by a steel cage. A heavy steel plate bocked our way about 10 feet up, so we had to step out of the cage to get around it. I was 3rd or 4th to go up and the fellow in front of me was a big heavy man. He stepped on the steel plate and broke the lock that was holding it. The 3 foot square swung down and hit me a glancing blow to the head! This is a true story!

    I came back down the 3 or 4 rungs to the ground and the others came down also. I was ok, bleeding a little, but I like to bleed a little for Rock & Roll so we started back up. 60 feet up that ladder and on to a cat-walk heading towards the centre of the bridge, up 3 or 4 flights of stairs and then another ladder, more cat-walk, more ladder till we made it to the top. But we were still on the New Orleans side of the bridge and had quite a long way to go to get to the centre. Walking along on a steel-mesh walkway, open on the sides, with little hand rails, looking a long ways down to the river below, was very daunting! My mind was playing tricks on me and I felt like I was being pulled hard to one side, like I should just throw myself over!

     We made it to the centre concrete support, had a couple of “smokes”, took some pictures and watched the various watercraft moving up and down the Great Mississippi River far below. Then it was time to head back. I think it was even scarier going down! They said they would send me some pictures but I never got any. This was in 1987 so e-mail was not happening. I never saw them again.

      Cheers  Sonny     sonnydelrio.com

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