English guitarist Robin Trower's early music is linked to psychedelia in the same way the public perceived the early work of Jimi Hendrix. Musically, the two created in the 1960s and (in Trower's case, also the early 1970s), what could be termed, an uncanny ability to tap into realms of sounds which jar the senses. Both guitarists shared a penchant for playing passages of guitar music punctuated by ethereal beauty. Both were equally capable of executing mind-numbing, dissonant solos. Trower still summons that aural muse with enthusiasm and skill. 
It is superficial to say that Trower is merely a Hendrix clone, as has been suggested by some critics. He has his own instantly recognizable sound quite separate from the Hendrix style. The sonic achievements of Trower's 1970s solo efforts were created from guitar intensities associated with late 1960s Counterculture music explorations and beyond.
Trower joined the newly formed Procol Harum in 1967. The group was renowned for an amalgamation of art rock progressive rock and a meandering psychedelia. Trower's finest work with the band is found on the group's albums "Home" and "Broken Barricades." Aside from some smoldering contributions in the form of solos and some original songs, Trower did not come into his own until he left the band in 1971.

Trower's solo albums of the early to mid 1970s, Twice Removed From Yesterday, Bridge of Sighs and For Earth Below, prominently featured the guitarist merging blues, controlled feedback, ethereal soundscapes and wah-wah peddle assaults into his signature sound. Other worldly guitar-fueled excursions into the subjective realms of his inner-space juxtaposed with solid, hammering, blues rock lead work. Trower's first three solo albums insured himself a permanent place in the eternally changing guitarist hall of fame.

The guitarist recently spoke about singing for the first time on Someday Blues. "I wasn't sure I was going to do a blues album but this material just started to come together and I started to think -- who am I going to get to sing it? And then I thought, 'well it isn't really gonna be a blues album unless I sing it myself, because it's all about one guy's feeling. So, I eventually just sort of decided to make a couple of demos to see if I could do it."

Trower, who hasn't toured for three years, has been pleased so far with audience reactions to the blues format. "I'm feeling a bit of a warmth toward my blues, the reaction live is wonderful. We're getting a great response to the blues material. It's my first conscious attempt to do what I would call traditional blues, although it's not very traditional."

Playing the blues, traditional or otherwise, has helped Trower reach some sublime moments on stage. "With blues," continues Trower, "I'm trying to get to a place, it's like an attitude, an atmosphere, a feeling. You're trying to get into a place and when you hit it, it's the most satisfying thing."

The simplicity of the blues has rewarded the guitarist with numerous on-stage pleasures. "I see it now as much more to do with the melodies. In terms of guitar playing, you've got to try to hit this melodic beauty that is available in those [blues] notes. It happens occasionally and that's when the tuning fork goes off in your head," says Trower.

There has only been one driving force in Trower's life for over 30 years. "I love playing the guitar, doing my own thing, it's my favorite thing. That's the whole buzz of playing. It's you doing it and it's great if other people get off on it."

Readers may be surprised to learn that the guitarist has co-produced the last two Bryan Ferry albums and will be putting the finishing touches on a third effort soon. "About four years ago, he asked me to come in on a track he was working on and we just sort of hit it off. He knew I appreciated what he had done [with Roxy Music]. He also knew that I saw where he had not quite gotten it right [on the particular track]. We ended up co-producing Taxi, an album of covers."

Trower believes Ferry's work and his own are inspired from the same roots. "We both have a great love of black music, especially the earlier stuff. We're both very enamored with it. The music we make individually though is really different. Our tools have been so different -- me with electric guitar ... power guitar -- Bryan with keyboards."

Like many English musicians who came to prominence in the 1960s, Trower was inspired by numerous American blues legends. "My favorites all tend to be the giants: Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Albert King, T-Bone Walker, Son House ..." Trower describes his latest tour as " more of a blues rock show where before it was more rock but my style has always been bluesy."

Having recently celebrated the 25th Anniversary of Trower's first solo album, Twice Removed From Yesterday. The guitarist does not foresee any plans for a box set of alternate takes or unreleased songs for collectors. "There really isn't much of that material around. I don't think financially, that it would be viable. You might be the only guy who would buy it," he jokes.

Highly unlikely, but Trower is rather modest about such things. His own label, V12 Records, released Go My Way in 2000 with modest results. He said he doesn't miss being signed to a record company. "Being able to have my own label is about being able to make the tracks I want to make. I couldn't get any major label or even a minor one, interested in me doing a blues album."

There may be another blues album ahead for Trower. "I have a lot of new songs, blues songs, but I'm kind of at the same time, waiting to see how good this album does."

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: When did you first hear about Jimi Hendrix?

TROWER: I think the first time I heard him was on Top of the Pops. I think he was doing "Hey Joe". It was after a lot of people had seen him playing in London before he recorded anything.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: What went through your mind when you saw the Jimi segment of the program?

TROWER: I remember thinking that's the way to play guitar, yeah that's the way it should be done [laughs]. Then I remember going and buying the first album, I didn't buy that single, "Hey Joe", but I remember going and buying the first album.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: How did the music affect you?

TROWER: I was very knocked out with that. You felt like it was definitely somebody doing something new -- something that hadn't been done before. There are elements of things that had already happened. He was incorporating stuff I had heard before. There seemed to be a Curtis Mayfield kind of vibe to some of it, you know some of that quite sophisticated rhythm and blues stuff.

It was the guitar style and his use of feedback and some of the melodies he was playing that were completely new and fresh. I think "I Don't Live Today," is one that sticks in my mind but there is a lot of great stuff on that album.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: Did you turn anyone on to Are You Experienced?

TROWER: I don't remember particularly putting it on for anybody else, it was one of a few things I was into at the time.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: Who were some of the other artists you were listening to in 1967?

TROWER: At that time I was very into B.B. King Live At The Regal, which was probably the most influential album for me guitar-wise - also, James Brown's, Live at the Apollo.

Another big album for me at that time was an album called Best of Muddy Waters, which had all the classic Muddy stuff on it. There were about four or five albums, Son House's Legendary Father of Folk Blues," was another one.

All around that time those were the big things I played all the time and Are You Experienced was definitely one of those.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: When you think of your guitar sound, how would you define it compared to other guitarists playing in the 1960s?

TROWER: I tend to think about my style as kind of what I call heavy, [it has] kind of a weight to the notes. I don't know about the sound though really. Live -- I do try and get some dynamics. For a live performance, you try to cover a spectrum of emotions.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: You, Jimi and many of the guitarists from the 1960s shared common ground in the blues.

TROWER: Without a doubt, it is the fountainhead ... more so with me and Eric Clapton. I think Jeff Beck, not so much. I always think of him coming from a Les Paul place. And Hendrix obviously had a lot of blues influence. To me, of all that period and style of players, he's the most unique. He's the one that had the most of his own voice of all of them. He's a one of. You don't bandy about the word genius lightly but if anybody is gonna get that title it would be him.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: Are you bothered by critics who say you were a Hendrix clone?

TROWER: I've always taken it as a great compliment. I don't necessarily agree with it, but it's a great compliment to be even thought by people to even sound like Hendrix, you know what I mean? That's pretty huge in itself and as you can probably gather, I consider him to be a giant.

His thing, apart from his inventiveness, has always been the soul power in what he did. So if people are hearing that I'm sort of sounding like him, I take that as a great compliment. To be thought to have something like the feeling he used to be able to get out of the guitar, I think is wonderful. At the same time I admit to a huge influence, especially on my first album [Twice Removed From Yesterday]. I would say the first album is very, very Jimi-influenced, and then from there I started to develop and write songs that were moving off into my own area and what have you. You can't really account for the way people are hearing what you're doing or what they hear in it.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: Aside from the blues influences, how else do you define your music and the similarities found in Jimi's music and other great guitarists?

TROWER: I think it's that blues soul power whole approach to playing the guitar and it really does start much earlier than Hendrix. It's B.B. King, Albert King, T-Bone Walker, Hubert Sumlin ... It's that whole blues, soul power thing which you can't really define. You can't even define it by saying, 'This guy played these notes ...' It's not so much the notes. They are part of it, but it's the way it's said. It's the intent behind it or the attitude of the notes, the way they are laid down. And I think that's the common ground and that's the inspiration behind all of that. Jimi's definitely the most original of that school of playing. It's that soul power thing which gives it that weight.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: Certainly blues gives an artist the freedom to express themselves as an individual. You might even say the blues expects it. It's a great art form to launch inspirational efforts.

TROWER: Absolutely, although you're working in a well defined framework, it's just exactly the way you lay it down which can be very individual.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: Have you ever played any of Jimi's songs live or in the studio?

TROWER: I've never been one for working out other people's songs or licks or riffs. I can't actually play any of Hendrix's tunes. Just the same as I've never sat down and worked out any of B.B. King's licks. I'm more interested in what's behind it. I've always had a sense right from the early days that you've got to be able to feel it yourself for it to mean anything. To lift other people's stuff is really quite difficult. The guy played it that way because he felt it. As I say what's behind it is the more fascinating learning thing.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: You mentioned Son House earlier. Do you still listen to him?

TROWER: The other day I bought a Son House album and there is some stuff where he's singing accapella and talk about the source for any kind of instrument. Just with his voice, it's just mind-blowing. It's deep, deep, deep. You can learn more in terms of phrasing and notes and how they sit or lay from his singing for any instrument. It was recorded at his house in 1969.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: What did you think about the Band of Gypsys album?

TROWER: I thought it was magnificent. "Machine Gun," in particular, had a very big influence on me, definitely. His playing on that song is some of the best playing on the electric guitar you'll hear anywhere. It's one of recorded music's finest moments.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: Is it true that the first time you saw Jimi live was in September 1970?

TROWER: It was actually a couple of weeks before he died. I was on the bill with Procol Harum in Germany. It was only one show: Berlin. [September 4, 1970 - "Super Concert '70" at Deutschlandhalle in Berlin, West Germany].

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: Did you have an opportunity to meet Jimi?

TROWER: I sort of went into the dressing room and said hello and that was all.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: What was your impression of that concert?

TROWER: I watched from the side of the stage. The fact that he was a lefty, with the guitar upside down, was odd. But I was struck by the size of his hands, huge hands. I thought he was brilliant. He was wonderful, though I don't think the band was working very well, it didn't go down very well. It wasn't gelling. That Berlin show was very strange because everybody was going down pretty well, it was us, Ten Years After, I think Canned Heat was on the bill as well, but Hendrix didn't go down well, I think he actually got booed. It wasn't working very well. I didn't watch the whole show because it wasn't going very well, it was a bit embarrassing so after 20, 30 minutes I went backstage again.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: What was your reaction to Jimi's death?

TROWER: First of all shock, I couldn't believe someone in his prime was suddenly taken from us -- especially someone who you admire and was a giant in music. I think the other thing was that somehow you weren't surprised. There were two sides to it. You were shocked and on the other hand you felt that it was inevitable.

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: How would you account for all of the diversity of musical styles, including Jimi's which were so much a part of the 1960s?

TROWER: Well it had very much to do with the meeting of two musical cultures. It was the fact of American music and British musicians colliding and creating something new. Obviously that can only happen once, can't it?

EXPERIENCE HENDRIX: The English generously embraced so many American musicians as well as American music. Usually cultures clash ...

TROWER: It was a rare moment. Everything else since in pop music really pales in comparison, I think. There's no doubt about it, just in terms of art history, you would have to say that. There has been nothing in rock and roll or pop or whatever you'd like to call it, of that caliber, of that vitality, of that creativity-nothing since.

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