Album Review: Robin Trower Live! 50th Anniversary Edition

1976 was the Year of the Live Album. Spurred on in part by the blockbuster success of the double LP Frampton Comes Alive (released in mid-January of that year), seemingly every artist of note churned out a concert LP. Here’s a very partial list: Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band’s Live Bullet; Deep Purple’s Made in Japan and Made in Europe; J. Geils Band’s Blow Your Face Out; Elton John’s Here and There, All the World’s a Stage from Rush; Johnny Winter’s Captured Live!; Go Live from Paris; Bob Dylan’s Hard Rain; the triple LP Wings Over America; Roxy Music’s Viva!; the Grateful Dead’s fifth(!) live set Steal Your Face; and One More from the Road by Lynyrd Skynyrd. All in ‘76. You get the idea.

So it wasn’t in and of itself notable that Robin Trower released his own Robin Trower Live! in March 1976. Since leaving Procol Harum in 1971, Trower had led a power trio, releasing a trio of studio sets: 1973’s Twice Removed from Yesterday, the breakthrough Bridge of Sighs in ‘74, and 1975’s For Earth Below. The second and third of those earned him a Gold record in the U.S. – where he was most popular – and For Earth Below gave him his first charting LP in his native UK.

Trower and his rhythm section – bassist/singer James Dewar and drummer Reg Isidore on the first two records, with Bill Lordan taking the drum set on For Earth Below forward – had been a hard-touring act, thrilling concert audiences with their powerful music. Informed by the blues but not painted into a corner by it, Trower’s trio provided serious muscle in the form of Dewar’s assured and heavy bass work and his husky, assertive vocal prowess. Both drummers played with power and finesse.

And Trower’s thick guitar tone was supercharged, melodic and assured; he alternated seamlessly between molten lead lines and textured chording, arguably providing a more fully-realized take on the power trio format than Cream had done just a few years earlier. (It’s worth comparing any track on Robin Trower Live! with a random section from either of Cream’s live releases; the air goes out of the arrangement when Clapton switches to lead. That simply doesn’t happen when the Hendrix-influenced Trower takes the stage.)

On its original release, Robin Trower Live! was a brisk seller, climbing to the No. 10 spot on Billboard’s chart, reaching No. 15 in the UK, and earning enthusiastic reviews all around. But with the benefit of hindsight, we now know that the single-LP document of a Stockholm concert from February ‘75 was very much abbreviated. Each of the album’s seven tracks was an edited take of the actual performance, sometimes trimming as much as a full minute.

Moreover, the full concert featured 12 songs, opening with the thrilling “Day of the Eagle,” not included in the ‘76 release. That song introduced the skill of the trio in superb fashion; near the end of the tune, Trower, Dewar and Lordan smoothly downshift to a slow blues without missing a beat (either literally or metaphorically). There’s a variety in tone and approach that can be experienced by hearing the full concert on this new release, making it superior to the album version from a half-century ago.

And in a welcome development, the 50^th Anniversary Edition of the album includes two discs: one with the complete concert in a new mix, another with the vintage album in its original mix. The whole thing comes packaged in a smart, book-like hardback cover filled with color photos and an essay. Even if (like me) your collection already features the old vinyl release of Robin Trower Live!, this new release easily falls into the category of indispensable.

You may also enjoy: my recent interview with Robin Trower as well as my review of the For Earth Below 50^th Anniversary Edition. And if you type his name into this site’s search bar, you’ll find my reviews of several of his 21^st century releases and more.