Steve Winwood : Spencer Davis, Traffic Blind Faith, Solo.
Instruments: keyboards, bass guitar, drums, guitar, mandolin, violin, and other strings.
On this date May 12th in 1948 Steve Winwood was born (wait-Steve Winwood is only 3 years older than me!) When he was performing “I’m a Man” with Spencer Davis in the early 60s he was only three years older than me? And when he was making hits with Traffic and then Blind Faith he was only three years my senior damn! He was just a little more mature than that naïve kid from NJ must be that English water! Anyway Winwood’s work with both Traffic and Blind Faith is in my music library -not his more popular solo work -big surprise! Here’s the background info from Wikipedia:
Stephen Lawrence “Steve” Winwood (born 12 May 1948) is an award-winning English musician and songwriter whose genres include: blue-eyed soul, R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz. A multi-instrumentalist, he plays the electric organ, synthesizers, bass, drums, guitar, mandolin, violin and other strings. A star performer for nearly 50 years, he has also done notable work as a producer. In addition to his solo career, Winwood was a key member of The Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith and Go. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Traffic in 2004.[1] In 2005, Winwood was honoured as a BMI Icon at the annual BMI London Awards for his “enduring influence on generations of music makers.”[2] In 2008, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Winwood #33 in its 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.[3] Winwood has won 2 Grammy Awards.Read More
Winwood is still active you can check out his tour schedule at his website . His last two studio albums were released in 2003 and 2008 respectively. The 2008 release is titled Nine Lives. Here’s what AllMusic says about the album
Steve Winwood‘s Nine Lives marks a more organic return to recording. This will be good news for those who live for any resurrection of rock heroes from days of yore, and bad for those who loved his hit singles in the 1980s and ’90s. Seven of these nine cuts resemble (at least partially) those found on his last album, the brilliant About Time issued in 2003. The latter was a barnstormer of a rhythm and rock album (feels like Traffic meets Santana) that never got its proper due. Continue Reading
Sounds like I have to give both those albums a listen! When I started writing this post I figured I’d play a track from my favorite Traffic album John Barleycorn Must Die. Here’s a link to a great video of Steve performing the song But after giving Nine Lives a quick listen, here’s “Dirty City” from that album with Eric Clapton on guitar! Oh and Happy Birthday, Steve!
