By Steve Newton
Robin Trower is one of my fave guitarists of all time. His string of wicked albums in the seventies–in particular Twice Removed from Yesterday, Bridge of Sighs, and For Earth Below–were a major part of the soundtrack to my teenage existence.
He’s never gotten the cred he deserves, partly due to the fact that some view him as too much of a Jimi Hendrix clone. The Hendrix influence never bothered me, though. I always thought Trower was an amazing artist in his own right. So much so that I inducted him into Newt’s Rock Hall in 2016–along with UFO, Blue Oyster Cult, Mott the Hoople, and Ten Years After. (For the uninitiated, Newt’s Rock Hall is my place for deserving artists who’ve never been chosen for that other Rock Hall in Cleveland.)
For one reason or another, Robin Trower has rarely played my home base of Vancouver, Canada. It wasn’t until 1990, when he played a show here at Drew Burns’ fabled Commodore Ballroom, that I finally got to interview him.
At one point in the conversation I asked Trower what the music scene in his home country of England was like at the time, and he didn’t have much good to say about it.
Have a listen:
To hear my full interview with Robin Trower, subscribe to my Patreon page, where you can also hear my interviews with such guitar greats as:
