Twice Removed From Procol: Robin Trower

Steven Rosen, Los Angeles Free Press, November 1973

IT TAKES A LOT of gumption to leave a baseball team right after you’ve clinched the pennant, or to walk off the playing field during the middle of a Super Bowl game, or to quit a rock band as soon as you reach superstar status. Robin Trower made just such a move when he left Procol Harum after that group had completed a highly successful tour of the states and had just released a superb album dominated by the guitarist (Broken Barricades).

But it actually wasn’t such an unanticipated move when you realize that Robin’s roots in the blues really had no place in the lofty surrealistic music of Procol. "I was in a group called Jam when Gary (Brooker) phoned me up and asked if I wanted to join. I said to him, "What sort of stuff are you doing?" because I was well into blues then and I couldn’t see the fit. So I went up and listened to what they were doing and it really had a good R&B feel to it."

Five albums later, he accepted the fact that the earthy bluesy sound recorded on the first album could never again be recaptured and made the inevitable move after writing a song for the Broken Barricades album. "I was trying to make the band a bit more earthy and it worked for a little bit with Broken Barricades; when I recorded Song For A Dreamer, I realized I had to go on."

Shortly after leaving Procol, there was a benign linkage with the Jude band (which failed because of the clashing of ideas) and then a re-piecing of that group into Robin’s current lineup. The ex-Procol guitarist saw the potential of bassist/vocalist Jimmy Dewar in Jude and when he began making plans for his own band, he naturally gave Jimmy, a call. Drummer Reg Isadore (not to be confused with ex-Joe Cocker drummer, Conrad Isadore) was a well-known session man Robin had run across, and it was Reg’s use of understatement in his technique that prompted Trower to ask him into the group.

"It’s not just a trio, it’s the right trio with Reggie and Jimmy. It’s not just because I’m the lead guitarist that it’s gonna happen; I mean I’m not just into guitar, I’m into making good music . . . great music. And I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think it was a lot better than what I’d done before."

Robin feels that a trio is the best arrangement for him musically because it allows (and demands) that each player undertake solely the duties of his instrument. "I think it gets too complicated if you add another (melody) instrument; to get somebody who’s willing to be just a part of what I’m trying to do is very hard because it’s hard to get somebody who’s very good who doesn’t want to do their own thing. That’s why a three-piece really works because everybody’s really doing their own thing; Jimmy’s playing bass because he’s a bass player, Reggie’s playing drums because he’s a drummer – that’s it really." The trio setup, however (as well as Robin’s guitar technique), has garnered some negative criticism over his work since leaving Harum.

"I’m very influenced by Hendrix, and I’m the first to admit it; everything I do is inevitable and I can’t not be influenced by him. Anybody who’s got any ears and plays the guitar or who’s got any musical sense at all could not but be influenced by Hendrix. It’s like you can’t write unless you learn A-B-C. Everybody else was just fucking about. He made real music on guitar and not just licks on top of somebody else’s music."

Robin confesses that it was Hendrix’s attitude more than his playing that he tried to emulate and, as for pure guitar style; BB King influenced him more than anyone. "It’d be silly to say I wasn’t influenced by Hendrix; everything about the guitar that you wished for, he’d done it. I don’t think I’ll ever be a good as him but I think it’s possible that we’ll make better music, which is a different sort of thing." Some of that music is the band’s first album titled Twice Removed From Yesterday which ranges from tender Hendrixian tunes (Daydream) to explosive amplified pieces (Man of the World). A new album due out shortly is an extension of that début album and should do much to deter any further criticisms that Robin Trower is nothing but a "rip-off." His involvement with the new band came after years of experimentation (The Paramounts, Jam) and disappointment (Procol Harum, Jude), and it is from these learning experiences that Robin hopes he’ll be able to avoid the same mistakes. The trio (of which he was first really made aware by Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies) might have been formed years ago had he any notion or vision of what he wanted to do.

"After that first bunch of songs they shifted over . . . I think it was Matthew’s (Fisher) influence that they went into a more classical thing because he was the classical influence; he was the biggest influence on the sound of the band. I think it was just that I didn’t know what to do, really; I always felt that one day I would do something by myself, but I didn’t know what it was.

"I didn’t know what it was I felt then . . . a certain sense of loyalty; once you’re involved and you’re going along and you work so hard on it (and I did work bloody hard on it pushing them along), you just don’t think of anything else. It’s just like that, you know, trying to get that to happen. But what I’m doing now is right – absolutely right."

More Procoloid history at BtP