Robin Trower or/as Jimi Hendrix

[White Knight]

Teddy, hi. Thanks for the heads up on Trower; I'll look into it, though I doubt I can afford to go any more. Happy Holidays to you and I hope your eye is better. Steve

[White Knight]

I saw Robin Trower with Procul Harum in the 70s in Oxford. He was a little restricted in that role and only appeared to shine on one number called Simple Sister. I got his first three solo albums which were excellent but then the press over here got after him for the Hendrix thing and he left for the US and never came back as far as I know. He did go a little commercial and I think the power trio is a hard one to develop. Jimmy Dewar was the first bass player and very good vocalist but he's dead now! Trower is an artist in his own right and not simply a Hendrix copyist...

Hi garethbarnes and thanx for that 411 on Trower; I was unaware that he had caught flak on the other side of "the pond' for playing ala Hendrix. And you're right: his playing on " Simple Sister' was dynamite!

[John Watt]

It's interesting that you thought "Simple Sister" was the one song Robin got into the most.
When I saw Procul Harem in '70 I had never heard that song before,
but it was the one song that got the crowd going the most.

[White Knight]

Yes John I do believe that it was their big crowd pleaser for awhile, perhaps because of the repetitive /building bass and piano lines--if memory serves--all of which really underlay the whole structure of the piece and acted as immediate identifiers of same in peoples' minds. However, that's just an uneducated guess on my part.

[John Watt]

Actually, that read like a very educated guess.
But I think it might even be something simpler, like it's a fast song.
Procul Harem didn't play very many fast songs, getting progressive themselves.
The keyboardist also started the concert by saying they weren't going to play "A Whiter Shade of Pale".
He said they were tired of always having to play that song,
playing only that song when they had a chance to play one song,
and if anyone requested it they would stop and walk off stage.
That's how it happened.

At the time, my girlfriends' grandmother bought the sheet music for her home organ.
I learned it with her, a real performance piece when we visited,
even if we tripped over the light fandango.

I can sympathize with Robin Trower, how he changed to the same guitar and amp with effects Jimi used,
and what accusations other guitarists would make, especially back then when Jimi just passed away.
The fact that Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton all made the same change at the same time,
put pressure on a lot of guitarists to get into the Marshall volume and tone zone.
But that's just the rock world.
I was more worried about the huge fins on the cars, riding my bike home with only one hand,
the other hand holding my new crybaby wah-wah.

[flyingace]

I just don't hear that much Hendrix in Trower's playing. Yes, he used a variant of a Jimi riff for Bridge of Sighs, but gee whiz doesn't everybody copy everybody else? I think the accusation that he 'copied' Hendrix is utterly unwarranted and it hurt his career.

If he sounds like anybody, it's SRV. But Trower came first.

[teddy]

Hello fg and welcome to the forum. Trust you will enjoy your time here as much as I do

teddy

[John Watt]

It might seem difficult to see Robin Trower as being so Hendrix influenced,
now that the whole world is saturated with Marshall amps and effects.
Right away, a real musician is thinking about musical abilities and stylings,
not the simple act of getting a Stratocaster and Marshall with effects,
what was new and partially designed by Jimi Hendrix back then.
Trower had a more expansive echo and Marshall sound, SRV kept to basic blues,
at least what was the new basic blues after Hendrix tore it up.