Steve Winwood

Steve Winwood Island

No serious admirer of Traffic ever thought that when Stevie Winwood got round to making a solo album it would be anything less than top notch. And so it has proved to be.

Let's have a look at the pedigree first. At 16 this talented wunderkid was penning such anthems as Gimme Some Loving for the English R & B outfit bearing Spencer Davis's moniker. When the blues boom died he moved into the then current vogue for supergroups: Blind Faith, with members of another supergroup; and Traffic, an attempt to replace the full-frontal lobotomy approach of the previous group with a jazzier more melodic attitude. Throughout that group's stormy, tempestuous seminal period it produced some of the most entrancing music to issue from England—No Face, No Name, No Number; Paper Sun and Hole in My Shoe, but hassles—both internal cerebral and internal groupwise—meant that they only ever attained that standard of excellence on two albums: II and Low Spark. However, the potential was always there, even if the various group members could never quite be bothered to realise it. Traffic finally ruptured for good nearly three years ago, and Winwood disappeared.

And this album—which I have no qualification whatsoever in labelling as the finest of the year—is eloquent testimony that whatever it is that he has been doing, he certainly hasn't been wasting time.

For those who remember the earlier Traffic this is going to come as something of a surprise. The pretty melodies of that material have been replaced with complex shifting rhythms more akin to some of the superior disco circulating recently. But it's a rhythm that appeals to both the cerebrum and the feet, so that you can dance and you may even find yourself listening to it.

It's not all toe-tangling though: the final track on side one Midland Maniac should be enough to convince rock and rollers who thought the genre had died off years ago that Winwood has retained his melodic sensibility as well as his multi-instrumental, writing and singing ability. On other tracks he's joined by famed earbiter Reebop, and session stalwarts Andy Newmark and Willie Weeks Capaldi.

Studio expertise is also to the fore. On some cuts Winwood has tracked his bass three or four times, giving the sound added resonance. Also he takes all the vocals, and adds some new twists to his already extensive keyboards vocabulary. The most startling improvement, however, has been in the guitar playing field, from the more tranquil passages to the more specifically hard rock lines, his figures are a never ending source of delight.

That's about it, really. I could sit here and waste time raving—objectivity fled about the third time Steve Winwood wound itself around the spindle—and there are only two months to go, musically in the year, so it's hard to see anything topping this. In the meantime as far as albums for '77 are concerned, here it is.

—George Ballast