{"id":31286,"date":"2026-04-22T05:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T09:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=31286"},"modified":"2026-04-22T07:45:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T11:45:00","slug":"album-review-robin-trower-live-50th-anniversary-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/album-review-robin-trower-live-50th-anniversary-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Robin Trower Live! 50th Anniversary Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"1976 was the Year of the Live Album. Spurred on in part by the blockbuster success of the double LP Frampton Comes Alive<\/i> (released in mid-January of that year), seemingly every artist of note churned out a concert LP. Here\u2019s a very partial list: Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band\u2019s Live Bullet<\/i>; Deep Purple\u2019s Made in Japan<\/i> and Made in Europe<\/i>; J. Geils Band\u2019s Blow Your Face Out<\/i>; Elton John\u2019s Here and There<\/i>, All the World\u2019s a Stage<\/i> from Rush; Johnny Winter\u2019s Captured Live!<\/i>; Go Live fr<\/i>o<\/i>m Paris<\/i>; Bob Dylan\u2019s Hard Rain<\/i>; the triple LP Wings Over America<\/i>; Roxy Music\u2019s Viva!<\/i>; the Grateful Dead\u2019s fifth(!) live set Steal Your Face<\/i>; and One More from the Road<\/i> by Lynyrd Skynyrd. All in \u201876. You get the idea.<\/p>\n

So it wasn\u2019t in and of itself notable that Robin Trower released his own Robin Trower Live!<\/i> in March 1976. Since leaving Procol Harum in 1971, Trower had led a power trio, releasing a trio of studio sets: 1973\u2019s Twice Removed from Yesterday<\/i>, the breakthrough Bridge of Sighs<\/i> in \u201874, and 1975\u2019s For Earth Below<\/i><\/a>. The second and third of those earned him a Gold record in the U.S. \u2013 where he was most popular \u2013 and For Earth Below<\/i> gave him his first charting LP in his native UK.<\/p>\n

Trower and his rhythm section \u2013 bassist\/singer James Dewar and drummer Reg Isidore on the first two records, with Bill Lordan taking the drum set on For Earth Below<\/em> forward \u2013 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\u2019s trio provided serious muscle in the form of Dewar\u2019s assured and heavy bass work and his husky, assertive vocal prowess. Both drummers played with power and finesse.<\/p>\n

And Trower\u2019s 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\u2019s worth comparing any track on Robin Trower Live!<\/i> with a random section from either of Cream\u2019s live releases; the air goes out of the arrangement when Clapton switches to lead. That simply doesn\u2019t happen when the Hendrix-influenced Trower takes the stage.)<\/p>\n

On its original release, Robin Trower Live!<\/i> was a brisk seller, climbing to the No. 10 spot on Billboard<\/i>\u2019s 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 \u201875 was very much abbreviated. Each of the album\u2019s seven tracks was an edited take of the actual performance, sometimes trimming as much as a full minute.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the full concert featured 12 songs, opening with the thrilling \u201cDay of the Eagle,\u201d not included in the \u201876 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

And in a welcome development, the 50th<\/sup> 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!<\/i>, this new release easily falls into the category of indispensable.<\/p>\n

You may also enjoy:<\/b> my recent interview with Robin Trower<\/a> as well as my review of the For Earth Below 50<\/i>th<\/i><\/sup> Anniversary Edition<\/i><\/a>. And if you type his name into this site\u2019s search bar, you\u2019ll find my reviews of several of his 21st<\/sup> century releases and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,64,65],"tags":[1860],"class_list":["post-31286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","tag-robin-trower","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31286"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31384,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31286\/revisions\/31384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}