Steve Winwood’s most recent studio CD, the 2003 release “About Time,” has been perhaps the most overlooked album of this respected artist’s long and successful career.
“About Time” didn’t escape the notice of music critics, though, and many of them have called it arguably Winwood’s finest solo effort.
Winwood agrees.
“I do think it ranks alongside some of the best stuff I’ve done, and I am honestly very proud of it,” the founding member of Traffic said in a recent phone interview. “I think what I’m most proud of is there was no concession toward any marketing or directing, it wasn’t directed for any commercial reasons. In fact, we released it on our own label, and it in some ways it has been a well-kept secret.”
That Winwood seems unconcerned with the commercial failure of “About Time” offers an important clue about his artistic intentions at this point in his career.
Having enjoyed several periods of huge popularity, Winwood said he now completely follows his artistic instincts in writing and recording.
That’s something he couldn’t say when he released 1986’s “Back in the High Life” and 1988’s “Roll With It,” which became back-to-back multimillion-sellers.
“I still like the songs, and I don’t regret writing any of the songs that I’d ever written in the ’80s,” Winwood said. “But I was perhaps under a little bit of pressure from record companies to produce, to aim at a certain market perhaps, which I feel now in hindsight was perhaps not the right thing for me to do. …”
Born in 1948 in the English town of Handsworth, Birmingham, Winwood was 15 years old when he joined the Spencer Davis Group as the band’s singer and keyboard player. He soon came into international prominence when he wrote and sang that band’s two signature hits, “Gimme Some Lovin’ ” and “I’m A Man.”
By the time that latter song was burning up the charts in 1967, Winwood already was feeling limited by the rocking R&B sound of the Spencer Davis Group.
The preceding year, he had started jamming informally with reeds player Chris Wood, drummer Jim Capaldi and guitarist-singer Dave Mason. In April 1967, Winwood quit the Spencer Davis Group, and joined his three friends in a new band, Traffic, which was formed with the goal of creating a new style of British rock and roll that would incorporate everything from Junior Walker and the All-Stars-styled R&B to traditional English folk.
Working with an open musical canvass, Traffic quickly went beyond its initial stylistic intentions and found popularity immediately with the 1968 debut “Mr. Fantasy.” Still, Traffic would quickly develop a volatile chemistry that saw Mason come and go from the lineup on several occasions. Winwood himself left in 1969 to join guitarist Eric Clapton, drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Rick Grech in Blind Faith, a band that imploded in 1970 after making one potent blues-rock album.
After starting on a solo record, though, Winwood rejoined Capaldi and Wood in a revamped edition of Traffic. The band turned Winwood’s aborted solo record into the classic 1970 album, “John Barleycorn Must Die.”
Traffic pushed on, making three more albums before breaking up in 1974.
Winwood moved on to do session work with the likes of George Harrison and Sandy Denny before releasing his first solo album, a self-titled effort, in 1977.
The album stiffed commercially, but Winwood rallied. He hooked up with lyricist Will Jennings and turned his next album into a true solo project, playing all the instruments on the 1980 release “Arc of a Diver.” After another popular album, “Talking Back to the Night,” in 1983, Winwood finished the decade with even greater success with “Back in the High Life” and “Roll With It.”
Since then, Winwood has branched out musically and followed his inspirations with decreasing regard to his commercial fortunes.
Even a 1993-94 Traffic reunion with Capaldi (Wood died in 1983), which yielded the 1994 studio CD “Far From Home,” failed to produce the kind of commercial impact one might have expected. But Traffic was still very much in Winwood’s plans.
He and Capaldi, in fact, were set to give Traffic another go last fall. But as plans were being finalized, the drummer was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and he died in January.
“Traffic was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year and we were due to go out” on tour, Winwood said. “We were both very excited at the prospect of going out on tour.
“Of course now, unfortunately there will never be Traffic anymore because I had always promised Jim that I would never be Traffic without him and he had promised me he would never be Traffic without me.”
Winwood plans to keep Traffic alive with the impending release of a live DVD, featuring performances from the 1994 reunion tour, as well as footage from the band’s early years.
Winwood also expects to honor his former band as he continues his solo career.
“Of course, the legacy of Traffic has always lived on, I feel, in my music,” said Winwood, who noted his current live set includes several Traffic tunes. “There won’t be Traffic as such, but I hope to be able to carry on that legacy of music.”
Steve Winwood performs Sunday in Woodinville.
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