At 57 years old, Steve Winwood has logged one of the most esteemed careers of the rock era, one that incredibly spans more than 40 years. Throughout his success, he has sealed his place in history both as a solo artist and as a member of such celebrated bands as the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Blind Faith. He has registered chart-topping, platinum-selling albums and singles, garnered acclaim of permanence on the U.S. and international music scenes, collected Grammy awards and has jammed and recorded with everyone from George Harrison and Jimi Hendrix to Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. He has absolutely done it all.
That considered, he'll nevertheless tell you that the wonder and fascination he developed for music as a teenager remains as potent now as it was 40 years ago: "Music is a never-ending learning curve," he says. "There is always something to know and discover about it."
While for the world at large, his exploration of soul, rock, blues and world music began some four decades ago—with the smash success of Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'"—Winwood says that it technically began even earlier, thanks to his father, who not only wholeheartedly supported his interest in music, but brought him into the fold. Reared in Birmingham, England, Winwood played guitar in his father's band in 1957 at the age of nine.
"I was very lucky," he says. "My father was very flexible in his approach, and encouraged me that if music was something I felt passionate about, and if I wanted to do it, then that was enough reason to do it, even if it wouldn't serve me well as a career."
Serve him well it did, though—and virtually right off the bat, no less. As a teen, Winwood expanded to keyboards and played in backing bands with some of the pillars of blues music, from T-Bone Walker and Sonny Boy Williamson to Memphis Slim and John Lee Hooker. But with a vocal style recalling Ray Charles and a deeply soulful voice that sounded much bigger and older than he was, Winwood wouldn't remain a sideman for long.
In 1963, at the age of 15, he co-founded the Spencer Davis Group, which would score chart topping radio hits with “Keep On Running” and “Somebody Help Me” in England and Europe, where they had worked hard to grow their fanbase a good year before "Gimme Some Lovin'" became a smash in the States.
Yet, in 1967, Winwood departed the group to form Traffic with Jim Capaldi, Dave Mason and Chris Wood. Debuting that year with Mr. Fantasy, Traffic would register consistent chart hits. Mason left Traffic early on and was therefore absent when Winwood and Capaldi wrote many of the songs that shaped the band's direction, stretched boundaries and honed the sound that was Traffic. All of the original studio discs entered the top 10 on the U.S. charts, while helping define psychedelic rock with such iconic tracks as "Dear Mr. Fantasy," "Medicated Goo," "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" and "Pearly Queen."
When Traffic disbanded briefly in 1969, Winwood formed Blind Faith with Eric Clapton, drummer Ginger Baker and late bassist Rick Grech—two-thirds of Cream, another rock titan that had then-recently disbanded. Considered by many to be the world's first supergroup, Blind Faith enjoyed great, however brief, studio and stage success with its lone, self-titled effort which gave birth to Winwood’s “Can't Find My Way Home.”
Traffic returned without Mason and scored another hit with 1971's The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys and later released Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory, On The Road and When The Eagle Flies. In 1974 Traffic disbanded; thirty years later, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.
By the time Traffic broke up, Winwood had already guested on albums by Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, triggering a trend that would continue with guest spots on albums from George Harrison and Toots and the Maytals, among others, during the three years predating his solo bow. "I think I was perhaps searching a bit during that '70s period," he remembers, "and gaining great experience from playing with lots of great people."
In 1977, he offered his eponymous debut, which climbed to No. 22 on the U.S. albums chart. Four years later, he returned with a force, climbing to No. 3 on that chart with the celebrated follow-up, 1981's Arc of a Diver, which spawned the top 10 hit "While You See a Chance." Playing every instrument on the album, in addition to adding the stamp of his signature vocals, Steve produced, engineered and mixed it as well. Arc of a Diver spent 43 weeks on Billboard's albums chart, ignited a slackjawing pop run that gained momentum with the release of Talking Back to the Night, just a year and a half later, featuring the massive single "Valerie," which peaked at No. 3 on the singles chart.
But it proved just the tip of the iceberg, as 1986's Back in the High Life would hit No. 7 on the albums chart, on the strength of "Back in the High Life Again" and the No. 1 hit single "Higher Love." Delivering Winwood a level of success that even he had never tasted before, Back in the High Life was nominated for five Grammys, winning the Best Male Vocal and the coveted Record of the Year trophies. Yet he was only getting started.
Steve Winwood returned in 1988 with his first No. 1 album, Roll With It, whose title track topped the U.S. singles chart. While his follow-up, 1990's Refugees of the Heart, cracked the top 30, Winwood was already losing interest in making mainstream music, feelings that would intensify after his reunion with the late Jim Capaldi for Traffic 1994's release, Far From Home, and resulting tour.
By his own admission, Winwood lost his way while crafting pop albums in the '80s and early '90s. It was a time when he probably considered outside opinions more than he really should have, he remembers. If there was a turning point, it came with his reunion with Capaldi, after some 20 years.
The album and tour, celebrated on the recently released The Last Great Traffic Jam DVD (a treasure trove of candid backstage and concert footage), marked a return to form—at least in approach—for one of the most accomplished performers in the rock cannon. "It was great," Winwood says. "It was more getting back to what I had always done from the very start, which was being a musician, rather than any kind of showman. So it was a natural progression, I think, and I soon realized that I was much more comfortable in that role.
"After the Traffic thing, which was a great experience, the record company that I was with said, 'Well now we really want a Steve Winwood album,' and I think they were looking for something like I had done in the '80s. So obviously I felt somewhat obliged to comply in some kind of way, and I made a record [1997's Junction Seven] that was done with the sole idea to try and get into the hit parade. After that, I thought, 'That's it for me. I'm not going to try and make music that gets into the chart, and gets radio play. I'm going to continue to do what I have done at various times in my career, and make music that I like and just hope that people can identify with that. And if they can't, well, that's my hard luck."
As he distanced himself from the mainstream, his performances—now featuring reworked versions of songs like "Higher Love"—became more organic, and more about the actual playing of music, instead of the presentation of music, he says. "I went through a bit of renaissance, I think, some years ago, when I suddenly realized that there are only certain elements required to play live: One, that singing has to be in tune and slightly recognizable. Two, the grooves have to be good. And, three, the band—the people playing—have to enjoy what they are doing, and if you can have those three elements, that is all you need."
Since Junction Seven, Winwood has drifted back to the free-flowing, improv-friendly, organic sounds of his early years, while remaining curious about how to incorporate his interests in more exotic music, as he does on his 2003 critically acclaimed album About Time, now being re-released as a DualDisc by Epic.
Hailed rightly as a return to form, About Time finds the blue-eyed soul pioneer returning to the warm tones and unrestricted territories explored by Traffic. Built on a bedrock of Hammond B-3 grooves, it's a hypnotic album that delves into world music, fusing classic Southern R&B with Latin, Afro and Caribbean rhythms. For Traffic devotees, especially those put off by the slick Winwood chart-toppers of the 1980s and early '90s, About Time is like a long hug from an old friend.
The album started to take shape a couple of years ago when Winwood decided that he wanted to make an album without a bass player, thus filling the songs with organ bass. "It's a great sound," he says. "It's not that it replaces the bass, it forces the bassline to be more simple. And it has a peculiar effect on the groove." That decision alone, he says, dictated the sound and flavor of the record.
"And then I also wanted to combine this purely American style of organ bass playing with world music, with Brazilian and Cuban rhythms and also other Caribbean and Afro rhythms and combine all that with the jazz/folk/rock that Traffic had used. I was keen to take the style of those early organists like Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, and Groove Holmes, who were brilliant exponents of the style known as 'kicking the B,' and combine that with elements of world music and rock."
In the four decades since he co-founded the Spencer Davis Group, Winwood has witnessed myriad changes in the music business, from dramatic evolutions in recording technology to massive consolidation in the label realm. But from where he stands, one thing at the end day has remained virtually the same: the music. And so it is oddly perfect that for all the experimentation and fusion he captures on About Time, the album essentially finds him coming full circle, artistically. Winwood has returned home, musically. And he knows it. After 40 years, the exploration continues.
