Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence Winwood born May 12, 1948 in Birmingham, England. At 58 years old, Steve Winwood has logged an esteemed career in the rock era, one that spans more than 40 years. He is a singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who in addition to his solo career, was 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, John Lee Hooker, Joe Cocker, Toots and the Maytals, T-Bone Walker, Howlin Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson and Memphis Slim.
He began playing drums, guitar and piano as a child and first performed with his father and older brother Muff in the Ron Atkinson Band at the age of eight. In 1963, at the age of 15 possessing a soulful and distinctive voice, he co-founded the Spencer Davis Group, having hit singles with Keep On Running, Somebody Help Me, I’m A Man and Gimme Some Lovin.
In 1967, Winwood departed the group to form Traffic with Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason. Winwood and Capaldi wrote many of the songs that shaped the band’s direction and honed the sound that was Traffic, helping to define psychedelic rock with such iconic tracks as Dear Mr. Fantasy, The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys, Medicated Goo, and Pearly Queen.
In 1969, Winwood formed Blind Faith with Eric Clapton, drummer Ginger Baker and late bassist Rick Grech. Considered by many to be the world’s first super-group, 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.
1977 saw the release of Winwood’s eponymous first solo album. This was followed by his 1981 hit Arc Of A Diver featuring While You See A Chance and afterwards Talking Back To The Night which included the hit single Valerie. Winwood played all instruments on both albums.
1986’s Back In The High Life produced 5 top 10 singles in the US charts including the No. 1 hit single Higher Love, was nominated for 5 Grammy’s, winning Best Male Vocal, and the coveted Record of the Year. Winwood returned with his first no. 1 album, Roll With It and in 1990 followed this with Rufugees Of The Heart which cracked the top 30 however Winwood was at that stage losing interest in making mainstream music.
By his own admission, Winwood spent the ‘80s and early ‘90s crafting pop albums. If there was a turning point, it came with his reunion with Capaldi after 20 years which resulted in the 1994 release Far From Home. The album and tour, recently released on the The Last Great Traffic Jam DVD (a treasure trove of candid backstage and concert footage) "was more getting back to what I had always done from the very start, which was being a musician rather than any kind of a showman. I soon realized that I was much more comfortable in that role."
Hailed rightly as a return to form, About Time, Winwood’s latest release finds the blue-eyed soul pioneer returning to warm tones and unrestricted territories. The album started to take shape when Winwood decided that he wanted to make an album without a bass player, thus filling the songs with organ 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. "I wanted to combine this purely American style of organ bass playing with world music. 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."
About Time essentiall finds Winwood coming full circle artistically. He is currently working on his new studio album slated for release in 2007. After 40 years, the exploration continues.