40 or so years ago, sitting around an overturned cable spool serving as a table where the bong sat, several of us concluded that, were it not for the fact that Robin Trower’s “Bridge of Sighs” album was some of the most depressing music ever recorded, it would live forever in the Pantheon of Rock! To this day, I revel in it!
Big Trower fan here and maybe it wasn't on the singles charts but he was pretty darn popular there with the albums and with the concerts for a few years in the mid-70s.
Fender Strat and Marshall stacks aside, I see less that's apt than not in the Hendrix comparisons. For one thing, Trower wrote better songs which had more hooks. Trower may have never reached the improvisational heights of "Machine Gun" but I'd say no question the average Trower tune is better than the average Hendrix one.
But no need to compare. Trower is when considered in a vacuum a guitarist of uncanny feel.
Hi John I love Parker's I Want You Back, it has the grit and mature honesty missing from the Jackson 5 version, but hey, Michael was a kid, and ahh... conflicted. H I wrote a couple of posts called Lost in the Wreckage, along those same lines... here the link to one https://williamrouthier.substack.com/p/lost-in-the-wreckage-2 Andy Partridge and Chris Braide (we didn't talk about this already, did we?) Another guy who should have had hits is an absolute fav of mine, Rob Laufer. You really should listen to him if you haven't. Or my song, Monkey, on Bandcamp. https://wonderwoodmusic.bandcamp.com/track/monkey
40 or so years ago, sitting around an overturned cable spool serving as a table where the bong sat, several of us concluded that, were it not for the fact that Robin Trower’s “Bridge of Sighs” album was some of the most depressing music ever recorded, it would live forever in the Pantheon of Rock! To this day, I revel in it!
Hahaha. Funny.
Big Trower fan here and maybe it wasn't on the singles charts but he was pretty darn popular there with the albums and with the concerts for a few years in the mid-70s.
Fender Strat and Marshall stacks aside, I see less that's apt than not in the Hendrix comparisons. For one thing, Trower wrote better songs which had more hooks. Trower may have never reached the improvisational heights of "Machine Gun" but I'd say no question the average Trower tune is better than the average Hendrix one.
But no need to compare. Trower is when considered in a vacuum a guitarist of uncanny feel.
This is fantastic. I have long felt Graham Parker yo be criminally under-appreciated.
Hi John I love Parker's I Want You Back, it has the grit and mature honesty missing from the Jackson 5 version, but hey, Michael was a kid, and ahh... conflicted. H I wrote a couple of posts called Lost in the Wreckage, along those same lines... here the link to one https://williamrouthier.substack.com/p/lost-in-the-wreckage-2 Andy Partridge and Chris Braide (we didn't talk about this already, did we?) Another guy who should have had hits is an absolute fav of mine, Rob Laufer. You really should listen to him if you haven't. Or my song, Monkey, on Bandcamp. https://wonderwoodmusic.bandcamp.com/track/monkey
So much fun. 🙏