Robin Trower Twice Removed From Yesterday (CD, Chrysalis Records, 1973) *** Robin Trower Bridge of Sighs (Vinyl and CD, Chrysalis Records, 1974) *****
Robin Trower For Earth Below (CD, Chrysalis Records, 1975) ***
Robin Trower Long Misty Days (CD, Chrysalis Records, 1976) ****
Robin Trower In City Dreams (Vinyl and CD, Chrysalis Records, 1977) ***
Robin Trower Caravan to Midnight (CD, Chrysalis Records, 1978) ****
Robin Trower Victims of the Fury (Vinyl and CD, Chrysalis Records, 1980) *****
Robin Trower Back It Up (CD, Chrysalis Records, 1983) ***
Robin Trower Live! (Vinyl, Chrysalis Records, 1975) *****
Genre: Rock, Blues rock, Hard rock
Places I remember: Sister Ray Records in London for the CDs, Real Groovy Records, Marbecks Records (Victims of the Fury).
Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Victims of the Fury
Gear costume: Day of the Eagle (Bridge of Sighs)
They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8
Active compensatory factors: This and the following post answers the musical question: What did Robin Trower do after he left Procol Harum?
The man goes back a long ways, starting with Procol Harum in 1967 (you can read my PH reviews here) and he's still at it! In 1971, driven by a desire to forge a new path, RT took his leave and picked up his Fender Stratocaster to relaunch himself as a guitar god.
Twice Removed From Yesterday was the appropriate album title to launch his new sound - a bluesy Hendrixian style that is still all Robin Trower. This is a very different sound to the prog rock guitar style he used in Procol Harum, which was always going to be keyboard driven thanks to the brilliant Gary Brooker.
He is joined in this new (for him) power trio format by Jim Dewar on bass and vocals and Reg Isidor on drums. Right from the off, it's a magic combination, particularly the Dewar/Trower one (drummers would come and go). Robin's melodic guitar playing makes him the standout star, but Jim's vocals and muscley bass are a perfect foil.
Second album, Bridge of Sighs, is where the real deal starts after the debut, but I've already written about it in this blog (here), so I won't include it again in the numerical countdown. Suffice to say it's a superb album that never puts a foot wrong. The album also includes the mighty Too Rolling Stoned, which I also have as a single, reviewed here.
For Earth Below was his third solo album in three years. It continued the high quality of those earlier ones, while also delving deeper into the bluesy edge to Robin's playing. It's good, but without the standout songs that populated Bridge of Sighs.
Next up was Long Misty Days in 1976. American drummer Bill Lordan had replaced Isidor for the previous album and he'd be a mainstay until 1981. The trio crank out an excellent set of melodic rock songs on Long Misty Days. Highlights are the title track, and Caledonia.
There was a slight change in style from In City Dreams in that a more varied pop/rock stance was undertaken. For this purpose Robin brought in a different bass player with a funkier shade to his playing. In the main, this evolution works but the songs overall weren't as strong as on Long Misty Days.
Caravan to Midnight continued in this vein (again with Rustee Allen on bass) and it feels better to me. In fact, this album is one of my favourites.
The songs have a funkier fluidity thanks to those basslines. It's definitely a departure from those earlier hard rock albums and as it proved, it was relatively short lived as the band returned to that style for 1980's Victims of the Fury. What a mighty return it is too. I can remember listening to it in Marbecks (where I had a holiday job) and being floored by the power and grace in the songs and how they are played.
As it happened it was the last to feature the Trower/ Dewar/ Lordan lineup (the trio format being dropped for the next album).
It's a fitting farewell to Bill Lordan as the drumming is terrific, the songs are great, the playing is great, and the production great (helped by the presence of Geoff Emerick - Beatles' engineer who was also there for Caravans to Midnight). For me, every song is top notch but that could be because I've played this album an awful lot over the years. So, I have a definite preference for it over other albums (apart from Bridge of Sighs).
It had been an album a year since 1973 until 1980 which is mightily impressive. Robin's next move was to get together with Jack Bruce and Bill Lordan for a couple of albums. I'll address these in a separate post as it's a tangent to the Robin Trower solo albums.
He reconvened with Dewar in 1983 for Back It Up - his last album for Chrysalis. Robin still plays some superb guitar but the album isn't as strong as Victims. As AllMusic said: the songwriting had been reduced to pedestrian hard rock, with only occasional flashes of the old cosmic brilliance.
It's after Victims of the Fury that I lost touch with Robin Trower. I'd gone teaching, met my wife and we started having babies in the eighties. Sadly, I didn't have the time or energy to keep up to date with a lot of music during that decade.
The Live! album comes from a concert in Sweden in 1975. It's a cracker of an album - showing that the boys could deliver the goods in a live setting as well as in the studio. As AllMusic correctly states, the album highlights 'not only Trower's virtuoso Stratocaster licks, but the soulful vocals of bassist James Dewar and the polyrhythmic drumming of Bill Lordan'.
Where do they all belong? Next up - The Robin Trower/ Jack Bruce albums.
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