Robin Trower - Harum Scarum (1980)
Following his departure from Procol Harum in 1972, Robin Trower put together a blues trio with singer/bassist James Dewar and Reg Isidore (later replaced by Bill Lordan) on drums. His first album, 'Twice Removed From Yesterday' established him as a guitarist of note, and although comparisons to Hendrix were inevitable he rode them out and started to produce music that was distincltly his own. His first few albums were produced by Procol Harum band-mate Matthew Fisher, but by 1976's 'Long Misty Days' he was co-producng himself with Geoff Emerick. By the same year's 'Robin Trower Live!' album he was at the height of his powers, and could only go down from there. Subsequent albums sold fewer copies, and by 'In City Dreams' I'd stopped buying them. He soldiered on through the 80's, forming B.L.T with Jack Bruce and Bill Lordan in 1981, and then going back to a solo career during the mid-80's. While he carried on releasing albums over the next 20 years to a reasonable reception, he suddenly had a resurgence in his career a few years ago when the releases started to get really favourable reviews, and his 2017 album 'Time And Emotion' crashed into the Billboard chart at number 2. One thing that has been conspicuous by its absence is any sort of out-takes collection, as there didn't seem to be anything that was ever put away in the vaults, so I was quite surprised to see an album appear the other month which purported to be just such a disc, and on listening to it it does contain some great songs that I'd never heard before. There were a couple of lesser quality and the odd duplication, and I wasn't keen on the cover, so with a bit of tidying up and editing, and rehoused in my own sleeve, here is an album that I never thought would see the light of day - a Robin Trower out-takes collection of unheard songs recorded between 1975 and 1980.
Track listing
01 Take A Fast Train02 With This Song03 Hold Back The Sands Of Time04 Start All Over Again05 Let Me Be The One06 No Man Is An Island07 Lady Seldom Seen08 Bless The Boy09 One In A Million10 Father Of The Dance11 To Know You Is To Love You12 Hold Me13 Feel Thing
Thanks. Trower is on of those guys that when I listen to him I always ask myself why don't I listen to him more? I even like the BLT albums. Not too crazy about his blues stuff but most of his output is very enjoyable.
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ReplyDeleteI would love to have tracks 2 & 4 but there is no access to them it appears.
ReplyDeleteRe-upped
DeleteThanks. I'm trying to figure out now how to access it as MP3. I didn't know it was a zip file. I have it in my computer to play there. Now I am trying to put it in CD-R format for playing elsewhere. Hopefully I'll figure it out. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteI was able to format the tracks to burn to CD-R. Thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteHope you enjoy it. The whole album is great stuff.
DeleteWe completely agree on that. I love all the tracks but had already tracked down all the others except the 2 tracks I requested. Now I finally have them all. Thanks again for the re-up. As a Trower fan back to the 1960s it is great to still be finding new things from the Dewar period that I hadn't heard before.
DeleteGot a similar "Harum Scarum" Cd by RT published on Five Dolar Records FDR 72.
ReplyDeleteThis One has 21 tracks, all of yours except track One (Tacke a Fast Train) plus Messing The Blues, Farther On Down The road, Only Time, Jack & Jill, Madhouse, Roads To Freedom, Into The Flame and Bless This Boy. released in 2000.
Just picked this up from your site, so needless to say I am a big Trower fan, and I plan on listening to this tonight. I've seen him a number of times in concert, starting in 1973 at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go and up until just last year. I have to say that way too many people gave up on Robin's output way too soon during the late 1970s. While it's true that In City Dreams and Caravan To Midnight were not so strong as his earlier works, IMHO the 1980s era albums Victims Of the Fury, Back It Up, Truce (w. Jack Bruce) and Take What You Need are all very strong efforts. Moving into the 1990s and starting with 20th Century Blues in 1994, just about every Trower studio CD released since then (including Seven Moons, his third album with Jack Bruce) has been pretty consistently great, even before such CDs as Time and Emotion were getting the good reviews. My theory is that at least in part there are some newer music critics on the block, and since there is so much crappy pop and rock on the current music market then by comparison Robin's wonderful sound is a bit of a revelation to many, both fans and critics alike. Well, the current critical accolades for Robin Trower are long overdue, and if fan response at concerts is any indication then it is also well deserved.
ReplyDeleteTrower's 2010 decade records are on pair to his oldies or even better.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate the share - nice to hear some material that I haven't heard before. Big Fan and saw him play at Festival Hall in Melbourne in 1975
ReplyDeleteNote: "Take a Fast Train" was the B-Side to his 1973 single "Man Of The World"