Robin Trower - A Tale Untold

Streaming now. Beautiful.

Saw his Living Out of Time DVD from '05. Phenomenal.

S.D. wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

As someone that only owns 2 Trower discs, Bridge of Sighs and Essential, where would the next logical step be if I wanted to expand my collection a wee bit?

Honestly, the best bet is to sell the 2 discs you have and get these two budget priced boxed sets:

A Tale Untold (1973-76)
http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Untold-Chrysalis-Years-1973-1976/dp/B003OPUZYO/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1362075046&sr=1-3&keywords=robin+trower

and

Further On Up The Road (1977-1983)
http://www.amazon.com/Farther-Up-Road-Chrysalis-Years/dp/B006VBGA1K/ref=sr_1_5?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1362075046&sr=1-5&keywords=robin+trower

You can get both box sets for under $15 a piece on Amazon and they contain 10 complete albums he recorded between 1973 and 1983.  This is the cream of the crop era and frankly they are all worth owning.

In addition, many of these albums aren't available as single discs, the only other option are the early 90s twofers from BGO and those are basically the same price as one of these boxes.  

Bump for info...

A Tale Untold is a better value than the "Orignal Album Series", correct? If I understand correctly, both sets contain the same 5 albums, however, A Tale Untold throws in some bonus material that you wont find on the originals.

Listening to Bridge of Sighs now and I think I need to expand my Trower collection. How is this guy not more popular with the likes of Clapton, Hendrix or other 70's guitar heroes?

A Tale Untold is a better deal.  The followup release Further On Up The Road is the second volume and gets you a lot more essential tower.  Those two releases get you everything from 1973 to 1983.

Why isn't he more popular?  America isn't exactly known for its collective musical taste.  

S.D. wrote:

Why isn't he more popular?  America isn't exactly known for its collective musical taste.  

Yeah. Bad Co. was more popular then with similar roots and style, but Trower did have 3 top ten USA albums, so I'd say they were popular then but mostly forgotten now by classic rock radio for whatever reason. For what it's worth, Trower in the mid 70's and Gamma in the early 80's were both superior to Bad Co of the same era(s).

S.D. wrote:

A Tale Untold is a better deal.  The followup release Further On Up The Road is the second volume and gets you a lot more essential tower.  Those two releases get you everything from 1973 to 1983.

Why isn't he more popular?  America isn't exactly known for its collective musical taste.  

those are excellent releases. I enjoy them a lot.

exact33 wrote:

S.D. wrote:

A Tale Untold is a better deal.  The followup release Further On Up The Road is the second volume and gets you a lot more essential tower.  Those two releases get you everything from 1973 to 1983.

Why isn't he more popular?  America isn't exactly known for its collective musical taste.  

those are excellent releases. I enjoy them a lot.

A Tale Untold is on it's way. I'll hold off on Further On Up The Road for now till I see how that one strikes me.

Further On Up the Road is interesting, but it's stylistically VERY different from A Tale Untold. A Tale Untold is straight blues rock in a very 70s vein, but FOUtR has a LOT of funk influence and the stuff with Jack Bruce is cool, but a bit of weirdness when compared to where Trower came from, sound-wise.

Runicen wrote:

Further On Up the Road is interesting, but it's stylistically VERY different from A Tale Untold.  A Tale Untold is straight blues rock in a very 70s vein, but FOUtR has a LOT of funk influence and the stuff with Jack Bruce is cool, but a bit of weirdness when compared to where Trower came from, sound-wise.

That's sort of what I thought. I've been reading up on Robin's albums on Wikipedia and it talks of him branching out in the late 70's and 80's from his normal blues-rock. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm concentrating on the blues-era for now.

Not to mention, I'm a little gun-shy of any 70's artist that carried on into the 80's and their work gets overproduced and synth-sounding (re: Gary Moore).

Personally, I like the stuff on FOUtR, but it requires a certain mood for me to reach for it. The first volume is a lot easier for me to dig in to regardless of my mood.

I hear ya. When I was pricing things out, I almost got both, just because. But then I decided to test the waters with the first collection for now. It's 5+ albums of material to digest, along with a bunch of other music from other artists I've got coming my way.

If only I had an endless cash supply and unlimited time to listen to it all. Stupid work and family always getting in the way of MY fun.

Robin returned to the heavier blues-rock with Victims Of The Fury and Back It Up, both included in the Further On Up The Road set. In City Dreams is one of my favorite Trower records and that's also in that set. The only so-so album in that set is Caravan To Midnight and even that record has good songs on it.

And the funk influence was there from the very beginning, you can hear it on his earlier records as well.

Hell, I'm single and I STILL can't find time for all the music I've amassed!  That doesn't include the stuff I have yet to pick up, either.  

Independent wealth is starting to look better by the day.

"Jenkins, fetch breakfast, would you?  I have a King Crimson box set to work through by tea time..."

And while you could definitely say that the funk influence was always there, Trower really started riding that horse pretty hard on the later albums. Musically, I don't have anything against it and experimentation has led to a lot of my favorite albums, but it felt like the fire went out of the music a bit. In City Dreams is a pretty good album, but there are some "domestic bliss" lyrics on there that sounded like embarassing tunes you'd hear at your parents' wedding anniversary celebration or something. That may just be me though.

This album is 41 years old this week! Doesn't sound a day over 20!!

MetalGuy71 wrote:

This album is 41 years old this week! Doesn't sound a day over 20!!

Excellent album, recently got in on vinyl for a buck!! But I was wondering, does it have 2 different covers? Mine is green compared to the one above that looks tan.

I think my vinyl copy is more greenish. Hell, for all I know, it just changes color as it ages.

Runicen wrote:

I think my vinyl copy is more greenish.  Hell, for all I know, it just changes color as it ages.  

I can't find any info stating that there was a definitive release of different covers, but an image search shows some more green-ish than the normal tan. Maybe it was a printing error on a certain run of covers? My cd cover is tan.

EDIT: I found this, but no reason was given for the color change...

Quote :

Originally released in 1974 with a green cover, these began to be replaced by a white colored version of the same image in the late 1970s.

EDIT 2: It's slow here today in work. So, click on the link to read the story of the original painting by "Funky" Paul Olsen, who painted quite a few Trower album covers

http://www.olsenart.com/bos.html

Bridge of Sighs was one of my Dad's favorite albums. I spent the summer with him in 1985 and that was one of many records he turned me onto. I've loved it ever since. After I got home that fall I was able to grab most of Trower's albums on LP really cheap...that was when you could still get used vinyl for 25 cents at the thrift stores.

So I guess if I have a green cover then I have an early pressing. Honestly, I don't think I have ever seen the tan cover, only online. My brother's copy is green as well.