'FUNKY PAUL" OLSEN
From the man who designed those memorable covers that we have all become so familiar with on Robin Trower's albums.
Before you check them out , below is a story Paul told me about a memorable time with Robin.
Then go to Pauls site to read about how the covers came into being and some great stories about Robin..
Great history lesson.
There is a great picture of Robin holding the origional work on In City Dreams.
An origional sketch for the Long Misty Days cover.
Read how the cover for 20th Century Blues was actually an alternate cover for ................what album?
There is also a alternate cover that was done for the origional Go My Way concept .
Paul has started up a great web page to showcase his awesome talents. Please click on the art button ABOVE to go directly to his sites home page.
You will be amazed at some of the connections to his art, including "Terminator 2" and "Star Trek". Check them out, and read the stories, the bio is a great read!
More Funky Paul Stories
When I moved to London from the Haight-Ashbury at the very end of 1969, I had a huge front room with high ceilings on the first floor (2nd floor to north Americans) of a communal house with artistic friends at 307 Portobello
Road, a well-known street-traders lane in Notting Hill Gate on Fridays and
Saturdays. Notting Hill Gate was the r&r enter of London, with Island records and huge studio converted from a church only two blocks away. The building next door housed Friendz magazine, a hip little giveaway, and half the musos I knew lived in the area (including Jimi Hendrix's girlfriend's flat where he died), while the other half lived in north London (like Ginger, Eric, and Jack). The BBC's top rock DJ, Pete Drummond, lived there...it was a happening place and a great area to live in at that time.
She'll kill me, but I can't remember when I first met Andrea, Robin's
charming and endlessly thoughtful wife...but I'm sure Andrea will
remember...she's good at things like that. It could have been in the late
60's in San Francisco, but I have a feeling it was at their house in
Rayleigh, Essex (I've just called them and left a message on the answering machine, so I know Andrea will call me back with the info----and a slap on the wrist, no doubt!).
Here are some Trower excerpts from my memoir, "The Loop":
Robin Trower moved from England to exclusive Malibu Colony in a house complete with pool and tennis court where Andrea, Robin's non-plussable wife, was truly non-plussed one morning to find Cary Grant's maid on the phone asking if his daughter could use their tennis court. I think Andrea managed to croak, "Of course she can!" Cary would bring her over in the next few days, if that was O.K. Andrea madly dashed about the house stuffing Robin's twenty-five guitars in closets, picking up leads and effects pedals and making sure the children were clean, the kitchen spotless, and topped up her reserves of every kind of English tea she could lay her hands on at the Market Basket just outside the Colony. Her house was going to be ready for Cary whenever he could come over.
I saw her the next day and she was still in a daze. "Paul! Guess what?" Robin cocked a smile at me as Andrea enthused, "CARY GRANT is coming over ANY TIME! He could arrive NOW!" The atmosphere in the house was so electric that Robin could have played electric guitar without plugging in.......that is if he could find one.
Alas, Cary never did turn up because Dyan Cannon had made it very clear that
if he showed up in the Colony she would slap a writ on him, or something, so in the end it became too sticky for him to make an appearance.
I asked Paul to share a couple of stories for the visitors to my site. Here's a great one...
I was going to do the "Caravans to Midnight" cover (I've got the comps for it, but they are packed away at the moment), and my idea was to have a photo of Robin in stage gear standing on a sand dune in Death Valley holding a huge chrome gazing ball I have (about 16" in diameter....really nuts).
Robin was living in Malibu Colony at the time and I was living in Hollywood, so we agreed I would get out to his place early, we would jump in his silver Corvette, and head out into the desert. I used to race cars, and Robin loves to drive fast, so we made very good time between us.
We got to Death Valley (250 miles away) in short order, I got some great pictures of Robin (again, I have the slides packed away somewhere....I've only just moved back from England), and then we stopped in to the Stovepipe Wells hotel for a cool one. The operative word being "cool." The back bar of the place was beautiful, and had been shipped from an old western saloon in Montana that was being torn down, but it originally came from England, where most of the fancy back bars were made for the Old West, then shipped to America.
The bartender was extremely excited because Marlon Brando was staying at the hotel, and the bartender had served him in his room. Robin asked him if he liked blues and rock, and the bartender said, "Oh, yeah!" But Robin didn't pursue it. He just looked wryly at me and winked.
By the time we decided to return to Malibu, it was pitch black outside, and there was NO moon. When it's a moonless night in the desert, it gets DARK! We decided I would drive the first leg, and as I was heading out of Death Valley at 100mph, Robin reached over and turned off the headlights! Yikes! I scrambled to turn them back on, shouting at him that he was going to kill us both in a tangle of fiberglass, and Robin laughed in the darkness as I fumbled for the switch (I didn't know where it was, but had a clue of the general location from Robin's trickery).
I found the switch, with no help from Robin, and There Was Light! There just as well couldn't have been, though.
- "Funky Paul" Olsen
BESIDES DOING MY SITE LOGOS PAUL WENT TO SEE ROBIN A FEW YEARS BACK AND HAD BROUGHT ALONG A NEW IN CITY DREAMS POSTER FOR ROBIN TO SIGN AND SEND TO ME..... GREAT GIFT PAUL...THANKS
