My introduction to Robin Trower and his music is a strange story but I have to tell it as it says allot about this guy and his fans and how I happened to get my In City Dreams Promotion package from the man himself. 
  Back in 1976 ( I was 22 ) I was on a vacation in my home town of Vancouver B.C. Canada visiting some friends I grew up with and who I had started playing in a band with at the ripe old age of  12. 
  Since I had moved away years earlier it had been awhile since I had seen them and as they had continued to play together for all these years they were quite popular in the area . Some of you from that fair city may recognize the name of " Mr. Natural" . 
 I was over at their rehearsal hall and was listening to them working on this one song over and over. This song blew my mind. It had this great guitar rif and the whole song was one that stuck in my mind. 
  I returned home to Winnipeg and went back to work. About six months later I met this guy named Brian , a guitarist , and we became fast friends . Always talking about putting a band together, you know the conversations right ? 
 Anyway, one night we were sitting around at this coffee shop people used to hang out at and I started to tell him about this song I had heard my friends play. I couldn't remember too much about it except that it had this great guitar part and it had something to do with a bird! 
 Brian looked across the table at me and said " Lets go to my place for a second I want you to hear this record!" 
 So we got to his place and went downstairs. He flipped through this massive pile of records , took one out and put it on the turntable. 
 This song started and from the first note I knew it was this song my friends had been playing! The bird , of coarse , was an eagle and the song Day Of The Eagle blasted from his stereo. I was hooked !!!! 
 Now imagine after hearing that song and all of a sudden getting to Bridge Of Sighs/ In This Place / Fool And Me . 
 Within six months I had purchased my Marshall 100w stack and switched from my Hagstrom to a Fender Stratocaster and was playing in a three piece band playing Trower/ Hendrix stuff ! 
 Brian moving to Bass guitar and another friend Ron taking care of the percussion. 
 Time passed a bit and I had met and become engaged to my soon to be wife . As we discussed where we should honeymoon I came up with this great idea that we should find out where Trower was playing at that time and fly to a concert to see his show. We taked about this for quite awhile . 
 In the meantime , I used to practise playing by putting a record on and jamming to it and on the odd occasion I would tape the results. I had jammed over a couple of songs from Twice Removed and when my wife heard them she said " You should send these to Trower for a laugh , and at the same time find out where he is playing around the time of our honeymoon. Sounded like a goofy idea but we still had to find his tour plans so I figures why not! 
 Having no idea how to get hold of him, I sent a couple of letters out to get some information . One letter was sent to his recordcompany at the time ...Chrysalis Records. 
 Well about a month past and I had heard nothing and was a bit dejected by the whole thing when I decided that in order to find this tour info I may just have to track Trower down myself. Logic tells me that we all have a phone so if you sit at one long enough and don't care about costs you should be able to track down anyone.....right? 
 So one day I sat down in the middle of my living room with a pad of paper ,a pen and a coke and started phoning . 
 I called Chrysalis and after talking to about five different people this guy says" Well I don't have his number but I have his managers number would you like that ?" 
Well,  this was great ! I had a number ! 
I was a bit nervous. When I called , this very nice woman answered " Misty Days Management". I said "Hi, I'm calling from Winnipeg up in Canada and ..." At this point she interrupted me and said " Oh , is this Steve Shail ?" 
 Well , I was dumbfounded , but managed to get out a " Well yes it is actually." She continued with " Well you just missed Robin, but he had just finished writing me a letter in response to my letter that had found its way to him through Chrysalis" 
I flipped out !!! Thanked her very much and got off the phone. 
About a week later this big envelope arrives and included in it was this great promo package on "In City Dreams" that was about to be released and also this very nice letter from Robin saying the general thank you for my interest in the band etc. etc. and his signature. Wow !!! This was great!  The letter got framed right away. 
 While this is how I got the promo package, it was not the end of the story. Again , the reason I'm telling this is because  it says something about Trower the person versus this great guitarist we admire. 
 To continue on, while I had five of his albums in my collection at this time, I  for some reason, was not realizing what a huge attraction Trower was. I also had no idea that he had sold millions of albums. I just thought he was this great musician who had been lucky enough to get some albums out but was relatively unknown in the larger music circles. Now we move back to the tape that I had made , and my girlfriend still saying that I should send it to him. 
 After allot of pushing she finally convinced me to write again and send the tape. 
 Now while Trowers music got me back into playing at that point in my life , and actually still inspires me today, I don't mimic his stuff or  his style (although there are some obvious similarities) so when I wrote him I told him about our plans to catch one of his concerts and said that if he had time perhaps we could get together and jam a bit being fellow guitarists!! I type this out and laugh now because again I had no idea of how well known this guy was so .......... 
off the letter and tape went. 
 Well a bit of time passed and I had finally realized just who I was writing to . A couple of articles I read made me realize his background with Procol and the huge success of "Bridge 
Of Sighs" etc and I thought man, this guy is going to get my tape and letter and think I 'm some kind of idiot!!!!! 
Well a bit more time passed and one day after work I went to the mailbox and here was this letter from Misty Days Management! I quickly opened it up and here is the letter that was inside :

  April 3 , 1978

Dear Steve, 
       I wanted to drop you a line before I left for London to thank you for your letter. The tape was quite interesting... I think you are quite a good guitarist and should continue playing. However, I think you should concentrate on your own originality, as there is a lot of talent there. 
      Congratulations on your engagement. I'm sorry I won't be here , however I must confess I probably wouldn't be able to see you anyhow. When I am in America, I find I'm even too busy for my family, and they are so very important to me that I do spend all of my free time exclusively with them. 
      I should be finished with my new album sometime next week, and then it's to London I go. I don't expect to be back for quite some time . . . I don't know how long I'll go on holiday. I've been touring for so many years now , it seems that I'm missing watching my family grow up. 
      Thank you for your support and encouragement. And good luck in all that you do . I must go , so take care.

 Sincerely 
Robin Trower

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So is this not an awesome letter!! When I got this and realized the time he took to answer a young guitarists goofy attempt at trying to jam with him I was in awe. 
 The album he was finishing up was " In City Dreams" and right after that release he did take a long time off to be with his family. I thought it was very personal and revealing at the same time. Here is a guy with millions of records sold taking the time to write this very personal letter to a fan.......I was , and still am very impressed with that.

  Thanks for letting me share this  with you. 
Steve 

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