Farther On Up the Road: The Chrysalis Years (1977-1983)

A year-and-a-half after the release of A Tale Untold: The Chrysalis Years 1973-1976, we get the remainder of Robin Trower's Chrysalis catalog in the three-disc Farther on Up the Road: 1977-1983. During this decade, 11 albums would appear under his name, six of them — all studio recordings — are available here, beginning with 1977's In City Dreams. Trower cut it and its follow-up, 1978's Caravan to Midnight, while living in Florida; they are heavily influenced by funk with drummer Bill Lordan and bassist Rusty Allen (both of whom had played on Sly & the Family Stone's Small Talk), as well as former and future Trower bassist James Dewar taking lead vocals. Both were produced by R&B ace Don Davis. The former album is a largely unheralded standout in Trower's catalog, with its funky vamps and backbeats melding with his brand of post-Hendrix blues-rock. Dewar's vocals are the most soulful of his career. The latter album suffers a bit from a dearth of ideas, though as an extension of In City Dreams, it works well. Victims of the Fury was a return to the power trio with Dewar back on bass. It also featured former Procol Harum bandmate, lyricist Keith Reid, as Trower's songwriting partner. It is the heaviest of the albums here, though far from the best. Trower and Lordan enlisted former Cream bassist and vocalist Jack Bruce for B.L.T. While it's a somewhat studied record, it contains plenty of spark, fire, and potential — realized on Truce, which brought back drummer Reg Isidore from Trower's first two albums, Twice Removed from Yesterday and Bridge of Sighs. The ideas here were more complex although they don't stray far from hard, post-psych blues rock. Bruce's songwriting in particular and his interplay with Isidore are remarkable. The final album is Back It Up, with two alternating drummers — Bob Clouter and Alan Clarke — bassist Dave Bronze, and Dewar back in a vocal capacity. It's an uneven record with some very atypical, rave-up big chorus-type numbers ("River") and vies with Victims of the Fury as the least successful effort here. That said, given the fact that most Trower fans will have this material already, the two bonus cuts — a single edit of "Bluebird" and the B-side "One in a Million" — and truly excellent sound will entice them to grab this volume anyway.