The following is from a promotional package I received from Misty Days Management (Robin's Management at the time of  "In City Dreams" release in February of  1978.)  
                         

  Profile :  Robin Trower

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     As Chrysalis Records proudly presents "In City Dreams", Robin Trower's first album, a bit of history is in order. 
"But wait," murmurs a malcontent whose record collection clearly contains a spate of LP's with the name Robin Trower on them, including the masterful  "Bridge Of Sighs", "For Earth Below" and a searing vinyl documentation of the on-stage Trower. 
      "How can you call this record Robin's first album in the face of all the black circular evidence to the contrary?" 
     A reasonable query.  Perhaps the man himself can clarify:   "Three years ago, I had a frustration that I had to get out.  I had to prove my ability to myself and I finally did.  I started to realize that I had nothing more to prove as a virtuoso, so it was kind of the end of an era for me.  Now I'm interested in seeing how much I can spread out from that, how much ground I can take in and this album is the first step.  To me it feels that this album is the first album." 
     Rock music can claim few artists who would -or- could mount such a radical departure from an established, successful format, especially at a point when most are content to shovel out familiar riffs in what amounts to a state of creative semi-retirement.  But few artists are governed by a muse as restless and insistent as that which nestles in the Trower soul.  It began typically enough in the senior Trower's working-class home in London's South End.  At 14, Robin got his first guitar for the same reason that thousands do....to be like Elvis Presley.  But eventually his preoccupation with Elvis, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis gave way to purer stuff.  "My biggest turnaround was when I was 19 or 20 and I first heard B.B. King and James Brown.  Those two artists took me from one path and set me off in another.  Also, Ray Charles and Muddy Waters.  I can relate everything I've done back to those things.  That's the music I've been trying to recreate in my own way ever since." 
     Robin was hardly alone in his R & B leanings in early 60's London and with a group called the Paramounts he enlisted in the youthful blues brigade that also counted bands like the Rolling Stones in his company.  The band  -Trower, Gary Brooker, Chris Copping and B.J. Wilson- 
was encouraged and abetted by the Stones as it worked the circuit ca. 1963-65, but its five Parlaphone singles did nought and it was soon reduced to backing up singers like Sandy Shaw.  Robin left shortly before the Paramounts split up and was little heard from until 1967. 
     It was then that Brooker, who had since teamed compositionally with one Kevin Reid, recruited Trower and Wilson to join himself. Matthew Fisher and David Knights in Procol Harum, whose inventive blend of R & B and classical strains and whose world-wide success with "A Whiter Shade of Pale" made the assignment a truly juicy plum.  After the third Procol album. the remaining former Paramount member, Chris Copping, joined the group in a line-up shuffle and by the fourth album, "Home", Trower's distinctive, versatile guitar had become a prominent voice in Procol Harum.  On its successor, "Broken Barricades", Robin suddenly took flight. 
     His "Song for a Dreamer", a liquid ethereal tribute to Jimi Hendrix, opened a new vista for Robin, a way of making a total music on the guitar.  It was a vision that couldn't be contained by the disciplined Procol Harum context and he departed to make his own way.  His first endeavor, a collaboration with vocalist Frankie Miller called Jude, was actually an attempt to back off from the new direction, but Robin quickly found that it couldn't be done and Jude never got off the ground. 
     It did, however, provide one crucial ingredient in bassist/singer Jim Dewar, a Scotsman who left Stone the Crows to join the group.  He joined Robin and with the arrival of ex-Quiver drummer, Reg Isidore, the Trower group was complete.  It didn't take long to hit its stride.  The first offering, 1972's "Twice Removed from Yesterday" and a subsequent tour of America (always Trower's bread-and-butter territory), formed a solid foundation and "Bridge of Sighs" firmly established him as a force to be reckoned with. 
     Not only was Robin's expressive, flashy, exquisitely crafted playing right up the alley of the young, progressive-to-heavy live audience, but his rich concept, creative extension to the Hendrix tradition and deep soul fulness commanded respect from the more serious, mature listeners of the band.  The records were permeated by an almost devotional quality, something audiences could appreciate firsthand in performance, where Robin's benign smile would light up the room as the notes floated up like offerings to the gods. 
     It wasn't just a matter of technique, though the tensions, the interplay of sound and silence, the subtle dynamics and the distinctive sound quality he fashioned with his instrument, were enough to dazzle the most jaded.  There was something more, a pervasive, bittersweet spirituality that, for all the advanced technology and personal style, could be traced directly back to Robin's enthralment with the mystique of the blues. 
     "With my music," he says, "I'm constantly expressing my personality makeup.  I wouldn't say I'm a sad person, but that's the way music comes out sounding sweetest to me.  It does come out sounding very blue.  There's a certain sweetness about it.  It's very real.  It's very human.  Quite often, when I'm playing guitar, I feel sort of...almost a lump in my throat and that's when I know it's on." 
     "For Earth Below", released in '74, found a new name on the roster.  Bill Lorden, after four years with Gypsy and on with Sly Stone, replaced Reg Isidore and brought a new energy, polish and control to the band.  Especially outstanding on the treacherously slow tempos often favored by Trower, Bill helped instil a new confidence in Robin's playing, which....thanks to the challenge of pleasing legions of fans night after night, and to some fingering exercises supervised by Robert Fripp...eclipsed even his previous high standards.  That great leap forward, documented on "Robin Trower Live" and furthered in the subsequent "Long Misty Days", finally lead to the creative cross-roads which yielded "In City Dreams", the new first album. 
     Quite simply, Robin had exhausted the possibilities of the three-piece format and explored to his satisfaction the guitar virtuoso aspect of the art.  Says Robin, "To me, music has always been more than just the guitar playing.  It's always been bigger than that, deeper, wider."  "In City Dreams" is a different Robin Trower from top to bottom.  Don Davis, who produced one of Robin's favorite albums, Johnny Taylor's "Eargasm", brings a new professional touch and strong R & B background to the proceedings. 
     The entrance of bassist Rustee Allen, once Bill Lorden's rhythm section team-mate in Sly's band, adds a funky energy and allows Jim to concentrate solely on vocals.  Jim, like Robin a traditionalist with roots in Otis Redding and Ray Charles, has responded well to his new freedom and to the shifting tide of Robin's music and his vocal work has moved beyond the moody scowl of old.  A new smoothness joins the earthy growl in Jim's arsenal to meet the interpretation challenge poised by Robin's new songs. 
     Most crucial, though, is the change in Robin's fundamental approach: 
     "I've changed my whole outlook toward making music.  I decided to concentrate more on song writing.  Before, the songs were so tied up with my ability as a player that you couldn't transcribe them to another musical medium.  I'm always based toward what I like to play on the guitar, but I decided to spend a lot more time and energy and effort on writing and arranging the material." 
     In addition, the band went into its sessions at Miami's great R & B studio, criteria, having never heard the material Robin had prepared down to the last detail...the solution, at last, to the problem of getting spontaneity in the studio:  "I wanted to get much more of a fresh approach to the music.  You get a much better overall feel from the tracks that way.  I think music these days is suffering greatly from a clearness.  It's too set, too pat, too clever, there's not enough mistakes.  I think there's mistakes on everything I do,  That's just the way I play...I'm sloppy-tight." he laughs. 
     The result?  Tracks like "Bluebird" ("A very unique piece of music," says Robin, "I've never heard anything like it before.");  "Falling Star" ("It's got a lot of things I like to hear in music...mood, funk, it's spacey.");  the quasi-instumental "Somebody Calling" ("It's got some guitar sounds that nobody has ever heard before.");  the Bobby Blue Bland classic "Farther On Up the Road" ("The best guitar solo I've ever put on record."). 
     Also "Smile" ("That's got a great bass and drum track on it.");  "Sweet Wine of Love" ("It's more of a standard R & B ballad.  It's a little bit off the wall for us, a little left field, but I'm glad we used it.");  "Little Girl" ("The deepest blue track I've heard in a long time."); the title cut ("A bit of an oddball track, really.  It's based around a kind of bolero thing.");  and "Love's Gonna Bring You Around" ("An unusual piece of music.  It's an R & B kind of thing, but at the same time. it's not."). 
    Robin's artist-eye synopsis of "In City Dreams": "I definitely wanted to do more of an 'up' kind of thing and also, be more song conscious.  I think our lyrics are much more straight forward on this album and there's definitely more melodic content,  It turned out to be a very major key album, although that blue thing is always there...that's inherent in everything I do.  The music is still very much me, but I think it's not so somber.  I would say the album is definitely an 'up' rather than a moody thing." 
     Robin Trower...sports fan, car collector, sucker for 40's movies, a witty fellow once you get beyond the formidable moods of his music, an admitted dreamer and romantic...is one of the few inhabitants of the rock world to maintain both musical integrity and commercial acceptance.  His glance back to the beginning tells why:  "I think you're either born a musician or you're not.  If you are, there's no other path.  Ambitions are different nowadays.  The main ambition is to succeed. to make hit records and a lot of money and be some sort of star.  When we started, back in the middle ages, we never even thought of making a record.  You got together to play.  That was where you wanted to be,  I don't think I've lost that attitude.".