In the Car CD Player

Believe it or not, the first time I heard Robin Trower was on AM radio. Our own Top 40 station in the Quad Cities (KSTT) played "The King Biscuit Flower Hour" on Sunday night. I always listened to it because I was cool. I wanted to know who was out there, what great music was out there that I had not heard. I heard him there in 1973. Then, while working the overnight shift at JI Case, my friend Tim Speer had this on 8 track. I asked him to borrow it and he never got it back. I didn't mean to keep it but he got laid off the next day. I wore this tape out. My band played "Day of The Eagle" and "Too Rolling Stoned". When I moved to Kansas City in 1978, one of my first interviews there was with Robin Trower. I was never so nervous in my life. Shooting Star opened up for Robin Trower the first time I ever saw him. They said he was a good guy. That's cool. He played at Westport Playhouse in St. Louis and Ronnie Montrose opened for him. Now, Westport Playhouse had a rotating stage. The sound had to be set up completely different than normal. The sound tech set up Robin's guitar and told him NOT to turn up his amp, or it would screw up the sound system. I introduce Robin, he shakes my hand, walks over to the amp and cranks it up. I look over at the sound tech and he has his head buried in his hands. The sound was awful, it sounded like a locomotive all night long. Apparently Stevie Ray Vaughan was not a Trower fan. In his biography, SRV accused Trower of being a "poser" and not a real player. I love SRV but I always thought Robin could play. This release though, has been with me for years. I love every song on it. In particular "A Little Bit Of Sympathy" the title track and "In This Place". I went through two 8 tracks and about 4 copies of this on vinyl. I have the MFSL version of this and after all this time, it still sounds sweet.