For more than six decades, Robin Trower’s career has known no bounds. At the age of 76, the British guitarist can reflect on a journey in which he has planted flags across the musical sphere and played every role imaginable. He’s been the driving force behind Sixties icons Procol Harum. The transatlantic solo star who filled US stadiums with 1974’s Bridge Of Sighs. The collaborator and occasional supergroup member. The elder-statesman songwriter whose late period still crackles with invention.

Few would dispute that the title of Trower’s latest album – No More Worlds To Conquer – is a fair summary of the thumbprint he has left on the musical universe. But as he reminds us, it should not be misinterpreted as his mission being accomplished. “I definitely feel like I’m still reaching,” he considers, “with the guitar, and the songs, and everything else.”

Every Trower record has its calling-cards. The passions that were forged during his Essex upbringing in the ’50s remain core strands of his DNA: that primal, irresistible pull towards American blues pioneers like Albert King and B.B. King, and the revelation that he, too, could channel that power when he made his first move in The Paramounts. “When I first got into the blues, it was the be-all and end-all for me,” Trower reflects. “Blues, rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll are the main influences that I carry forward. They’re still all in there.”

Joining Procol Harum in 1967, and playing a key role across five albums, Trower could have sat back and enjoyed the gilded existence of a guitar hero in a superstar band. But by ’71, he was starting to itch. “I started to realise I was coming up with a lot more ideas than Procol had room for,” he once told Classic Rock. “It was something I had to do. It could have all gone awry. But I believed in my creativity and my talent.”

Featuring vocals and bass from the late Jim Dewar – along with jaw-dropping guitar work from Trower that has influenced everyone from Steve Lukather to Opeth – the US-gold-selling Bridge Of Sighs is perhaps his flagship album. “I think the track In This Place is a particular peak,” he reflects. “But with every album, it’s the best I can do at that particular time. I think that’s what it’s about. I set myself goals and each song has to live up to them.”