VETERAN blues guitarist Robin Trower marked his 70th birthday on March 9 by releasing his latest studio album, Something’s About To Change, that day.
“I can’t remember ever being so happy with a finished album before,” says the Southend-born septuagenarian, who is accompanying the record with a 17-date tour that visits York on Wednesday.
Trower also celebrated his birthday with a career first: the launch of his first music video for the album’s title track that day too.
Something’s About To Change, issued through Manhaton/V12 Records, forms Trower’s follow-up to 2013’s Roots And Branches. Comprised entirely of original material, it combines his deep love of post-war American blues with personal themes. “As a songwriter and a performer, you use everything at your disposal to put into songs,” he says.
Recorded with long-standing producer Livingstone Brown at Studio 91 in Newbury, the album has a further landmark, being the first time Trower has played bass to complement his “soul-in-fingers guitar parts”. “There is some sort of feeling of emotional release when you play a note that rings out right,” he says.
Trower has made his mark for six decades, first on the London circuit of the early 1960s with fledgling R&B group The Paramounts, then from 1967 with Procol Harum, before his solo career took off with 1974’s Bridge Of Sigh. In the 1990s, he partnered Bryan Ferry on the albums Taxi and Mamouna and in 2008 he recorded Seven Moons with Jack Bruce.
Trower’s special guest on Wednesday will be British blues guitarist, singer and songwriter Joanne Shaw Taylor.
• Robin Trower, York Barbican, Wednesday, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 854 2757 or yorkbarbican.co.uk
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