Artist: Traffic
Genre(s):
Rock: Pop-Rock
Trance: Psychedelic
Rock
Jazz
Rap: Hip-Hop
Discography:
Far From Home
Year: 2003
Tracks: 10
Traffic: On The Road
Year: 1973
Tracks: 3
Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory
Year: 1973
Tracks: 5
Welcome To The Canteen
Year: 1971
Tracks: 6
The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys
Year: 1971
Tracks: 6
John Barleycorn Must Die
Year: 1970
Tracks: 6
The Best Of
Year: 1969
Tracks: 11
Last Exit
Year: 1969
Tracks: 7
Traffic
Year: 1968
Tracks: 10
Mr. Fantasy
Year: 1967
Tracks: 10
Dear Mr. Fantasy
Year: 1967
Tracks: 10
Smiling Phases (CD 2)
Year:
Tracks: 10
Smiling Phases (CD 1)
Year:
Tracks: 16
Sala De Espera
Year:
Tracks: 9
On The Road
Year:
Tracks: 6
Though it at long last must be considered an meantime vehicle for Steve Winwood, Traffic was a successful group that followed its own single course of instruction through the rock music setting of the late '60s and early '70s. Beginning in the psychedelic year of 1967 and influenced by the Beatles, the band early on turned tabu eclectic pop singles in its aboriginal Great Britain, though by the end of its first yr of being it had developed a pop-rock hybrid tied to its unusual instrumentation: At a metre when electric guitars ruled rock, Traffic emphasized Winwood's pipe organ and the reed instruments played by Chris Wood, particularly flute. After Dave Mason, wHO had provided the band with an alternate folk-pop sound, bypast for good, Traffic leaned toward extensive songs that gave its players room to extemporize in a jazz-like mode, regular as the rhythms retained a rock structure. The resultant was international success that complete only when Winwood eventually distinct he was ready to strike out on his own.
Steve Winwood (born May 12, 1948) number one attracted attention when, at the geezerhood of 15, he and his older brother Muff formed a band in their aboriginal Birmingham, England, with Spencer Davis and Pete York, finally called the Spencer Davis Group. They were gestural by record executive director Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, and began recording in 1964. As the band's singer, Winwood received the lion's share of attending. By the time he and his brother drop by the wayside the grouping in April 1967, the Spencer Davis Group had amassed quadruplet Top Ten singles and troika Top Ten albums in the U.K., iI of those singles as well arrival the Top Ten in the U.S.
Static non even so 19 days honest-to-goodness, Winwood formed Traffic with ternion 22-year-old friends wHO had played in lesser-known bands - drummer/singer Jim Capaldi (August 24, 1944 - January 28, 2005), singer/guitarist Mason (born May 10, 1944), and Wood (June 24, 1944 - July 12, 1983). In the emotional state of the times (and despite Winwood's prominence), the radical was intended to be a accommodative, with the members living together in a country cottage in Berkshire and collaborating on their songs. Blackwell quickly signed them and released their debut single, "Paper Sun," which peaked in the U.K. Top Five in July 1967 and also spent several weeks in the lour reaches of the charts in America, where Blackwell licenced it to United Artists Records, as he had the Spencer Davis Group's recordings.
Meantime, as Traffic recorded material for its debut album during the summer of 1967, its communal mentality was disrupted by Mason, wHO, unlike Winwood (a composer world Health Organization needful help with lyrics and therefore tended toward collaboration), was subject of penning songs on his have and did so. The succeeder of "Newspaper Sun" encouraged Blackwell to button a reexamination single quickly, and he chose as the most likely nominee among the songs Traffic had recorded so far "Hole in My Shoe," written and song by Mason. It became an fifty-fifty bigger strike than "Paper Sun," nearly topping the British charts in October, just that didn't baby-sit easily with Winwood, wHO matte it was unrepresentative of the sound he wanted for Traffic. The group's third single was "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush," the title of respect song from a motion picture, which became their third British Top Ten hit in December, the same month that their debut album, Mr. Fantasy, was released. It, also, earned a Top Ten ranking in January 1968, just by then Mason had left Traffic. A fourth part single, "No Face, No Name, No Number," culled from the album, made the British Top 40 in March, the month that Traffic debuted as a unrecorded attraction in the U.S., where Mr. Fantasy (ab initio titled Heaven Is in Your Mind) reached the Top C.
Traffic encountered two problems as a trio. First, given its unusual instrumentation, it had difficulty onstage doing without a instrumentalist like Mason, wHO could handle the bass voice guitar form. In his absence seizure, Winwood was forced to occupy in the bass voice sound by playing the organ's bass pedals with his feet while at the same time performing the organ keyboards with his hands and telling. Second, without a fertile writer like Mason, the radical had more difficulty coming up with sufficiency new material to gratify its contractual commitments. As a resultant, Winwood, Capaldi, and Wood reconciled with Mason, world Health Organization rejoined Traffic in the fountain of 1968 and contributed heavy to the band's second album, Traffic, committal to writing half of the songs, among them "Feelin' Alright?," which went on to turn a rock 'n' roll monetary standard, peculiarly later Joe Cocker's 1969 cover adaptation became an American Top 40 hit in 1972.
Traffic was released in October 1968, and the band went on enlistment in the U.S. to promote it. But simply subsequently the start of the enlistment, Winwood, Capaldi, and Wood discharged Mason. Then, at the decision of the enlistment, Winwood withdrew, announcing the separation of Traffic at the beginning of 1969. These events even so, the album reached the U.K. Top Ten and the U.S. Top 20. And separation or no, Winwood was contracted to Island and United Artists for fin albums, of which only two had been delivered. Thus, in April 1969, the labels released Last Exit, a compendium of non-LP singles sides, outtakes, and live recordings. It was some other Top 20 success in America.
Meanwhile, Capaldi and Wood rejoined Mason along with keyboardist Wynder K. Frog in the transient band Wooden Frog, which never recorded, and Winwood teamed with one-time Cream members Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker as intimately as former Family penis Ric Grech (Nov 1, 1946 -- March 16, 1990) in Blind Faith. This extremely touted supergroup made one album, Blind Faith, which topped the charts in the U.S. and U.K., and played one American circuit earlier breaking up. Still outstanding his record labels two albums, Winwood began work on a solo track record in early 1970, only chop-chop brought in Capaldi and Wood and off it into a Traffic LP. Gospel According to John Barleycorn Must Die was released in June 1970. In the U.S., it was a gold-selling Top Ten hit; in the U.K. it reached the Top 20.
Embarking on extended touring, Traffic expanded its batting order, adding Ric Grech on bass part. In the spring of 1971, in anticipation of British and American touring, drummer Jim Gordon, once of Derek and the Dominos, was brought in, as was percussionist Reebop Kwaku Baah. Also joining for a handful of U.K. dates was Dave Mason, wHO had in the meanwhile suit a solo star with his 1970 album Alone Together. The band was able to work off its contractual committal with a live album from this lineup, Receive to the Canteen, released in September. Re-signed to Island, which began releasing albums in the U.S. as intimately as the U.K., Traffic quickly followed in November with the studio album The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, which reached the American Top Ten and sold a one thousand thousand copies, though, in an reading of the group's progressively international focus, it didn't even chart back plate in Britain.
A wintertime 1971-1972 enlistment was aborted by Winwood's poor health (he was later on revealed to be suffering from peritoneal inflammation), and Grech and Gordon left the band, piece Capaldi recorded his debut solo album, Oh How We Danced; it reached the American Top hundred. In the fall of 1972, with Winwood recovered, Traffic convened to disk a new album, adding drummer Roger Hawkins and bassist David Hood, members of the studio band at the notable Muscle Shoals recording studio. (Keyboardist Barry Beckett, some other Muscle Shoals alumnus, played with the band live.) Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory, released in January 1973, reached the American Top Ten and went gold. The domain enlistment that promoted it was chronicled on Traffic -- on the Road, released in October 1973.
At the ending of the enlistment, the Muscle Shoals musicians returned base and Kwaku Baah as well left hand Traffic, which recruited bassist Rosko Gee. Capaldi released a second solo album, Whale Meat Again, in the summer of 1974; "It's All up to You" from it reached the U.K. Top 40. With Traffic, he recorded a new album, When the Eagle Flies, released in September. It was the band's fourth part consecutive studio album to extend to the American Top Ten and go amber, and the grouping toured to support it, merely at the ending of the enlistment Traffic silently disbanded.
With a headstart on a solo life history, Capaldi scored a Top Five hit in the U.K. in 1975 with a cover of "Love Hurts" from his third gear record album, Short Cut Draw Blood. (The single charted in the U.S., but deep in thought knocked out to a competing version by Nazareth.) Along with former Santana drummer Michael Shrieve, Winwood participated prominently in Japanese percussionist Stomu Yamashta's conception record album Go, which made the Top one C in the U.S. in 1976. In 1977, he at long last made his solo bow, releasing the modestly successful album Steve Winwood. A three-and-a-half twelvemonth silence ensued, broken in by the 1980 release of Arc of a Diver, which hit the American Top Five and went pt, paced by the Top Ten single "Piece You See a Chance." 1982's Talk Back to the Night was a commercial letdown, merely Winwood had the sterling success of his life history with 1986's Back in the High Life, a multi-million trafficker that threw cancelled four Top 20 singles, among them the chart-topping "Higher Love." In 1987, "Valerie," a remixed reading of a vocal from Talking Back to the Night, hit the Top Ten. 1988's Roll With It was another multi-platinum marketer for Winwood, with both the record album and the title sung dynasty topping the charts. But Refugees of the Heart (1990) was less successful. In 1994, Winwood announced a reunion with Capaldi (Wood had died of liver failure), wHO had continued to record solo albums with diminishing success. The iI made a new album, Far From Home, and toured as Traffic during the summer. The album rapidly reached the U.S. and U.K. Top 40, but did non sell good, and the hitch likewise performed disappointingly, signal another retirement of the Traffic name. Nevertheless, the 1967-1974-era band continued to enjoy substantial position as a graeco-Roman rock act, its albums earning CD reissues along with the release of compilations like Smiling Phases (1991) and Feelin' Alright: The Very Best of Traffic (2000). Capaldi's decease on January 28, 2005, appeared to commit an end to the band.
Roberta Flack
