GET BACK TO WHERE YOU ONCE BELONGED

Linda, one of my co-editors here at Globotron—uh, CREEM—came back from lunch with Detroit disco producer extraordinaire Don Davis, waving an acetate of the new Robin Trower album.

The two things did not seem to have any relation at all. Robin Trower did what to Don Davis? Don Davis did what to Robin Trower? Does this have anything to do with Robin "Wah Wah" Trower, or is it a cute new black thrush along the lines of Rose Royce? Huh?

Nope, this is English Robin Trower, the guitarist who single-handedly turned the special electronic effects business into a zillion dollar industry...

We gave the record 9 spin, and it might as well have been Rose Royce... no thunder of the gods guitar solos, quite...and sure enough, oF Don had managed to infuse quite a bit of chugga chugga rhythm.. .Robin Trower, you say?

Robin had a lot of explaining to do. And, since he's not a naturally garrulous person, how could he be induced to open up for the press and explain his New Sound? It was decided to have him talk with somebody he had already communicated with successfully; on an earlier story I'd done on him we had trusted each other instantly as fellow mutes. And as mutes will do, chatted like magpies.

(This is the Shy Person's Interview Technique. Any shy person can make instant contact with another by secret techniques we're forbidden to reveal. People from British or Scandinavian countries do this without even thinking...it is, in fact, how I speak to my Norwegian art director.)

So Robin and I were settled comfortably in a room opening onto his record company's herbaceous terrace...He was looking very tan and shockingly blond, just in from Malibu where he was ensconced in a beach house while rehearsing with the band and waiting for vocalist Jimmy Dewar to arrive from vacation. His publicist was no help when I asked him for key questions. "He never t^lks! I wouldn't know what to ask him." Still, all the comforts we could possibly want were provided by his anxious record company (anything to ply words from his lips): beer, cheese, worry beads...

First we covered a wide range of topics (part of the technique), to get the

"All the great blues Is behind us now."

ball rolling.

Robin said he'd chosen Don Davis as producer of In-City Dreams because Johnnie Taylor's Eargasm LP, produced by Davis, was the best record he could think of.

"This is the first time I've ever gone into the studio with everything written, arranged...just a lot more organized. Although Bill [drummer Lourdon] and Rustee [the new full-time bassist, formerly with Sly] had to kind of jam...

Bill usually wants to hear his part of a song so he knows exactly what to do.

"Don immediately sussed out when we had it right. One or two things that I'd work out...he'd say 'I'm not impressed with that—try something else.' Nobody ever said that to me! It didn't bother me. I always like to see what other people's ideas are."

Did he have any idea how surprised people would be with the album?

"Well, actually, I was hoping that it would surprise people. Though I didn't think it was that different. For me it wasn't too surprising; it's just another side of me that people haven't seen before. I hope I have more sides!"

Was he playing differently? Using less pedals?

"I am playing differently because it's a year later than it was. I'm using more special effects, if anything. I really think I've gotten guitar sounds on the new LP that have never been heard before..."

I mentioned Keith Richard's statement in March CREEM to the effect that all bands should play in small clubs every once in a while to recapture that old black magic...Robin confessed to being an avid Stones fan, but demurred:

"I don't think you can generalize about all bands. It's not the most ideal situation for my sort of music.

"I would like to be in a blues band, and play in clubs." He looked wistful. "I've thought of doing a blues LP, but it wouldn't really be valid. All the great blues is behind us now—I don't want to be a nostalgia item. I would rather go forward. Even though I go back to it— my roots, and all. But it's not a note-fornote cop. I've always managed to put my own personality into it."

Somehow the conversation turned to Led Zeppelin, which caused Robin to grimace. Apparently he'd said things about them before (although not when I've been around).

"I don't really want to say anymore. about them. It might be that Jimmy Page really has his heart and soul in what they do. I only really like the first few albums."

They've been successful...

"Yeah. The kids get a charge from the energy. Everything goes for 10 years, and then it gets turned around. Rock's been pretty much the same thing for about 10 years. It's time for something new."

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33

Suddenly, Robin recalled an incident that would explain "everything." I knew it would take some preliminaries before he would really get down, mouth-wise. (We'd both darted out of the room for rest stops; when I came out his stunned record company people would murmur, "But he never talks...what on earth could he be saying?")

It seems that Robin was at a photographer's studio having stills done. The photographer had the local FM rock station on, and Robin was listening vaguely while being photographed.

) "It was all this shit I didn't like. Same old boring stuff. Then they played a cut of mine, in the middle of all this. I liked it—better than the other stuff, anyway. It made me think that something was wrong in the way I was getting things across. '

"What I thought I was saying— maybe it wasn't coming across to people the way I thought it was coming. I thought, I'm going to have to change my approach, if I want to get across what I want to ejet across...

"It's taken me this long to put it together in a way that non-musicians can get into. I had to say—'I believe in this; this is what I want to say."

"I don't like a lot of rock. A lot of it I don't dislike. But I decided that I didn't want to be associated with it.

"The part of me that was reaching so many people live.. .like "Daydream"— that's always been a centerpiece of the band, live. At the same time I realized that with that song I wasn't reaching all the people that I wanted to. Rock was in a dead-end street. I don't want to be in a dead end street. It was time for us to progress. This LP is a statement."

Essentially, Robin has returned to his blues roots; he'd become aware that his perception of himself as a blues-based guitarist was light years away from the heavy metal thunder that came out of the FM stations across the country. He denies vigorously that it's a question of "playing blues" or not...

"Sixties blues were very derivative. I was hip enough so that 1 could figure out which record they got each lick from. We missed it—the blues when they were really happening. You will have a lot of people looking back and trying to figure out why it isn't here anymore.

"Eric Clapton did an Otis Rush song once that was so.. .it fascinates me that someone had it and now couldn't play a blues to save his life. It's like it didn't take hold with a lot of people back then."

Robin felt a story about a wellknown guitarist would make his point clearer. He'd been hanging out at a recording session where a lot of musicians were laying tracks down to help a soul singer with his album. Robin was doodling around on the guitarist's axe, playing a blues song. "Oh," said the guitarist, "I haven't played blues in a long time. I'll have to play some blues..."

Robin laughed. "It's like you get up in the morning and say, 'Oh, I think I'll play some blues today—maybe some rock later'...You don't. It's a feeling you either Lave or don't have.

"Eric Clapton once said 'I went into Cream a blues player and came out a rock guitarist'. If it's that easy to lose your ability to play the blues, you never really had it."

What would he advise a young guitarist to do?

"Go back to where you first turned onto things. I go back to a twelve-bar blues when I doodle. I'm keeping in constant touch. I've always been able to bring it back. Of course, I never ever sat down and worked out a guitar lick that someone else had done. What would be the point? I couldn't express it the same way..

"I don't really believe in exercises. Of course, Robert Fripp taught me some finger exercises once, and they did help me for a time. But usually I practice by making music.

"You have to learn the ABC's first. You just cannot jump in. You've got to start from basics. Listen to early stuff— you have to go way back.

"I went from Elvis, which first turned me on, forward a bit, then back a lot. Rock hasn't been all it's cracked up to be. Black music is the big thing artistically in this century. I would say, to a young musician: forget about rock—go back to black music. Check it out, and you've got the whole story, almost."