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Steve Winwood: Albums
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Steve Winwood’s reputation as a wonder-boy with precocious talents - as a singer and multi-instrumentalist (keyboards, guitar, bass, etc.) - helped sustain his career through a long series of badly crafted and fairly impersonal albums with Traffic. He maintained a veneer of importance as a pop music figurehead as he struggled with his inability to write lyrics or set fire to static instrumental tracks. Winwood took 20 odd years to fully capitulate to corporate pop expectations. When he won a Grammy in 1987, his music seemed only a little worse than what we’d come to expect. Glorious expectations had been long forgotten.
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Winwood's next studio album, 1997's Junction 7, was a bitter disappointment to his legions of fans. For once, a man that had barely put a musical foot wrong in over 30 years had missed the bus. It was a great relief to long-time fans that 2003's About Time was a magnificent return to form. Highlights included the ten-minute plus "Silvia" and the beautiful ballad "Horizon". Winwood's influences were allowed to come to the foreground as he indulged himself in a spectacular jam session, with shades of Jimmy Smith, Tito Puente and Ray Charles everywhere. On this album he combined the soul jazz Hammond organ sound from his Spencer Davis Group days with some fine jazz funk and Latin beats of the style embraced by Traffic in their latter meandering days.
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Steve returned in late 1980 with the little-heralded 'Arc of a Diver', a much stronger effort on which he played every instrument himself. It was a platinum-selling hit in the U.S., helped by the hit single "While You See a Chance". The extremely similar 1982 follow-up 'Talking Back to the Night' sounded rushed to some reviewers, and it wasn't nearly as big a hit. Taking more time to craft his next album, Winwood didn't return until 1986, with 'Back in the High Life'. It was a smash hit. Winwood's hot streak continued with his first album for Virgin, 1988's Roll With It.
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In 1973, while Winwood was on hiatus from Traffic due to illness, he took part in a reggae trio called The Third World. It was a one-off project, not to be confused with the better-known, long-running reggae band of the same name. His two collaborators were African musicians Remi Kabaka (who had played with Winwood in Ginger Baker's Air Force) and Abdul Lasisi Amao (a founding member of the African worldbeat group Osibisa). Their one and only album Aiye-Keta was produced by Winwood, who ... played keyboards, lead guitar, and moog synthesizer. The lead vocals were done by Kabaka (who wrote all of the songs), but the album is mostly instrumental. The reggae sound is relatively spare, while Winwood's spacey keyboards add a fairly predictable Traffic-like flavor.
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After the dissolution of Traffic, Winwood was quick to reignite his musical fire by hooking up with guitarist Eric Clapton, who was fresh off his stint with blues-rock powerhouse, Cream. Finding that they enjoyed playing together, 20-year old Winwood and Clapton, his slightly senior partner, expanded their duo to include former Cream drummer Ginger Baker. News of the band's formation caught on like wildfire amongst fans and promoters. Concert tours were booked and arrangements for an album were made, all before the band had adequate time to rehearse.
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At the peak of his commercial success, Winwood moved to Virgin Records and released Roll With It and Refugees Of The Heart. The album Roll With It and the title track hit #1 on the album and singles charts in the summer of 1988. He recorded another album with Jim Capaldi released under the Traffic name, Far From Home, then resumed his solo career with his final Virgin album Junction Seven.
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