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UID:robin-trower-b66442a8@mke-field-guide.vercel.app
DTSTAMP:20261008T201358Z
DTSTART:20261014T010000Z
DTEND:20261014T030000Z
SUMMARY:Robin Trower
LOCATION:Pabst Theater\, Pabst Theater\, 144 E. Wells Street\, Milwaukee\, WI\, 53202\, United States
DESCRIPTION:Even now\, as he reaches his eighth decade\, with a lifetime of accolades and a\nseminal body of music behind him\, Robin Trower is still chasing the biggest high\nhe knows. It always starts the same way\, with a road-scuffed Fender Stratocaster\nand a revved-up Marshall amplifier\, those skilful fingers exploring the\nfretboard until a riff sticks and a new song ignites. And from the cultural\nflashpoint of Sixties London with Procol Harum\, through 1974’s stadium-filling\nBridge Of Sighs\, right up to this year’s acclaimed Come And Find Me\, it’s these\naddictive moments of creation that have kept the guitarist vital\, relevant and\ncontemporary while his peers trade on past glories.\n\n“Some people say I’m driven\, but I think it’s just the love of doing it\,”\nreflects Trower of a multi-million-selling solo catalogue fast approaching\nthirty releases (and that’s before you compute his collaborations with everyone\nfrom Jack Bruce to Bryan Ferry). “I play guitar every day and just through\nmessing around\, ideas happen. I can never feel the songs coming. But all of a\nsudden\, you get a sliver of an idea and you think\, ‘Oh\, what’s this…?’”\n\nRight now\, Trower stands on the cusp of a whirlwind year that will see him put\ndown heavy miles across America and the UK (“I’m chomping at the bit\, because I\nhad to cancel a US tour last year due to an operation”). At the grand vintage of\n80\, however\, this latest tour represents a mere stretch of the long road\ntravelled. In his mind’s eye\, Trower can still see his Southend-on-Sea childhood\nin the ’50s\, and feel the formative influence of guitar players from across the\nwater. “Rock ‘n’ roll\,” he says\, “was my first love. I’m still drawing on that\nfirst love for Come And Find Me.”\n\nWhen he reaches right back\, Trower’s earliest memory of that rebel movement is\nhearing Elvis sideman Scotty Moore (“He probably had the best sound of any rock\n‘n’ roll player at the time”). Next came a life-changing spin of a friend’s\nimported single\, which happened to be B.B. King’s 3 O’ Clock Blues (“I just\nremember hearing the bends and vibrato and thinking\, ‘How the hell is he doing\nthat?’”). Albert King’s Crosscut Saw\, Jimi Hendrix’s Machine Gun\, James Brown’s\nLive At The Apollo: all of them informed Trower’s musical personality as he made\nhis first moves in 1959 with R&B hopefuls The Paramounts.\n\nThe big time beckoned in 1967 when Trower joined A Whiter Shade Of Pale\nhitmakers Procol Harum\, and many guitarists would have clung to that enviable\nposition for life. Trower acknowledges his good fortune at being at the\nepicentre of that late-’60s youthquake (“I still think it was the epitome of UK\npopular music and rock ‘n’ roll”). But Procol’s band dynamic could never contain\nall his ideas\, and after five acclaimed albums\, Trower rolled the dice on a solo\ncareer. “It was something I had to do\,” he told Classic Rock. “But it could have\nall gone awry.”\n\nNeedless to say\, the history books have vindicated him. By 1974\, Trower was a\nmajor star in the land whose music had inspired him\, with Bridge Of Sighs’ heavy\nsoul achieving Gold US sales and influencing future luminaries like Steve\nLukather\, Metallica and countless more. “When I hear Bridge Of Sighs\, it’s like\nthe earth under my feet is moving\,” the highly rated Canadian bluesman Philip\nSayce told Guitarist in 2024. “It’s like a chest is heaving.”\n\nTrower himself is still proud of that deathless record (“I recognise the\npotency\, especially with Jimmy Dewar’s fantastic vocals”). Yet the veteran\ndoesn’t dine out on Bridge Of Sighs – or his other hit albums of the late-’70s\nlike For Earth Below\, Long Misty Days and In City Dreams – preferring to march\never onward. Stick a pin in his catalogue over the past decade alone and you’ll\nfind projects from 2020’s United State Of Mind supergroup alongside Maxi Priest\nto the pairing with New York vocalist Sari Schorr on 2023’s Joyful Sky. “She’s\ndynamite\,” he says of the latter\, “and I’ll Be Moving On is a particular\nfavourite of mine from that album.”\n\nTracked last year during four separate sessions at Newbury’s Studio 91 (the\nsetting for all Trower’s recent solo albums)\, the genesis of Come And Find Me\nspeaks volumes about the guitarist’s late-period momentum and high standards.\n“Here’s the thing\, I had enough material for two albums\,” he reflects. “I must\nhave recorded 18 songs\, all finished. I honed that down to ten songs\, but when I\nlistened back to the album again a few months later\, it didn’t quite hang\ntogether. So I recorded some new songs\, knocked others off the previous running\norder. A lot of work went into Come And Find Me – but it really does hang\ntogether well now.”\n\nNever one to let interviewers too deep into his headspace\, Trower once explained\nthat each new album is a snapshot of his situation and worldview at that moment.\nAs such\, Come And Find Me is the best way to know the guitarist better in 2025\,\nand this new record is clearly not the work of a lofty rock star but an engaged\nparticipant in the real world\, with relatable loves\, hates\, hopes and fears.\n“Musically\, there’s a strong R&B flavour behind it\, but it’s obviously rock ‘n’\nroll\,” he explains. “Lyrically\, I think the world has become a lot darker in the\nlast ten or twenty years. But there’s always hope. There’s more good people in\nthe world than there are bad.”\n\nAlways a sociable musician and generous collaborator\, Trower enlisted his\ntrusted studio band for Come And Find Me. Drummer Chris Taggart once again\ndrives these powerful songs\, with returning US bassist Glenn Letsch providing\nlow end on two tracks (Trower played the remainder). Long-standing vocalist\nRichard Watts brilliantly interprets the guitarist’s highly personal lyric\nsheets\, while guest singer Jess Hayes is a head-turning addition for Tangled\nLove’s tough\, choppy soul. For the fairydust\, Trower turned to Studio 91’s owner\nSam Winfield for the engineering and final mix – but the guitarist was\nintimately involved with every element. “For me\, working on a new song is a\n24-hour job\,” he explains. “It’s always on my mind. I’ll wake up in the middle\nof the night thinking about it.”\n\nLikewise\, the Come And Find Me tracks will take up residence in your head. A\nLittle Bit Of Freedom starts in combative style with a blast of wah guitar and a\nbold first line (‘I don’t need no-one to think for me’). “I had a strong sense\nthat red tape and rules are really constricting things in the world\,” says\nTrower. “Too much red tape\, not enough freedom to think – it’s got to where you\nfeel straitjacketed.”\n\nTrower’s ambivalent stance to the times is also writ large on cuts like the\ntremolo shudder of The Future Starts Right Here (“We’re becoming so tribal and\ntaking sides\, like\, ‘Oh\, you’re not with me – I must hate you’”) and the\nstinging Without A Trace. “That song is about all the lies in politics\, mostly\,\nand on social media. You know\, this absolute out-and-out lying\, to try and\ninfluence people.”\n\nElsewhere\, the guitarist’s famed musicianship takes centre stage. Try the\nglowering angst and molten solo of Take This Hurt Away (“That song actually\nstarted when I thought to myself one day\, ‘I wonder what I would come up with if\nthey asked me to write a song for a James Bond film…’”). Or spin the swampy One\nGo Round\, which lived up to the ‘seize-the-day’ lyric with its rapid birth in\nthe studio. “That was almost an instant finished thing. It was like a hot knife\nthrough butter. All the lead work was improvised\, and it’s exactly where I live.\nThe lyrical meaning is pretty obvious. You only get one go round\, so try and\nmake the most of it.”\n\nAs the album unfolds\, Trower reminds us of his ability to write a cliché-free\nlove song\, via the hard-driving I Would Lose My Mind\, the glistening smoulder of\nCapture The Life Begun and the push/pull groove of I Fly Straight To You.\n“That’s pretty basic stuff\, isn’t it?” he smiles of the latter. “A guy is mad\nabout a girl. It’s almost like a Beatles lyric\, like\, ‘I want to hold your\nhand…’”\n\nCome And Find Me is a grand statement that demands a big finish\, and Trower duly\nreserves a very special guitar solo for the closing Time Stood Still\, his\nemotive string bends and shivers of vibrato matching a hypnotic vocal that finds\ntwo lovers stopping the clocks in each other’s arms. “I had that complete piece\nbefore I started on the lyric\,” he says. “I think it’s beautiful. It’s a lovely\nfeeling to go out on.”\n\nFiery\, thoughtful and fuelled by real human emotion in a time of\nmachine-generated music\, Come And Find Me is hardly the work of a rock icon\nresting on his laurels. On the contrary: keenly aware of passing time\, Robin\nTrower has made it his late-period mission to capture as many shards of magic as\npossible. “In one way\, I can’t believe it\, that I’m still going at 80\,” he says.\n“It’s kind of scary. You know that you’re way down the road\, and you could hit a\nbrick wall at any time. But I still love doing this. For me\, there’s nothing\nmore rewarding than working on a new song…”
URL:https://mke-field-guide.vercel.app/events/robin-trower-b66442a8
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