The Spencer Davis Group, Eric Clapton And The Power House, Traffic, Blind Faith, Ginger Baker's Air Force, and even a session musician, Steve Winwood has worn a lot of hats in the music industry.
He joined The Spencer Davis Group at age fourteen, joining his brother, who played bass, and began performing live venues. This would lead to Island Records taking notice, and signing them in 1964. As a group, they released three albums between 1965 and 1966. Though it was Winwood that they, the label, saw the most drive and ambition, he would leave the group in 1967.
Before doing so, he joined Eric Clapton to form The Power House, and recorded a handful of tracks. Three of these songs would ultimately be included in the 1966 compilation album, What's Shakin'. On a side note, this record is rather unique, in that the word, "compilation" isn't used in the sense of a greatest hits. Rather, it's a various artists recording, featuring Eric Clapton And The Power House, The Lovin' Spoonful, Al Kooper, Tom Rush, and The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. A lot of these songs would eventually end up on the greatest hits albums of the respective artists.
Throughout the late sixties and seventies, Winwood would work in several groups, releasing numerous albums. His most notable being that of Traffic, which he formed with Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason in 1967. Traffic began as a psychedelic rock group, but would ultimately refine and hone their sound, infusing it with jazz. They released several albums between 1967 and 1974 before disbanding, but would reunite in 1994 for their latest, and final album to date.
Inter cut with the success of traffic was his work with Blind Faith on their one and only self titled 1969 album, the 1970 self titled debut of Ginger Baker's Air Force, 1973's Aiye-Keta by Third World, and two albums with Go in 1976. However, all this work had taken its toll. Weary from touring, Winwood stepped out of the mainstream of music, and opted instead to work as a session musician. This wouldn't last long though, as pressure from Island Records would push him towards a solo career.
Winwood released his first album self titled album in 1977. It was not received well, garnered no hits, and in 1981 would even be called, "Vaguely interesting, by Robert Christgau in the book, Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies.
There wouldn't be a second album released until 1980's Arc Of A Diver, and 1982's Talking Back To The Night. While both albums would have hit singles, Winwood would once again step out of the limelight, returning to session work.
What led me to his 1982 album was the tune, Valerie. I was surprised to discover that the song was released so early in the 80's because I equated with his latter albums from the back half of that era. It turns out, I was rightly doing so. I was disappointed when the song started as the opening track to the album to find that it was not the version which I remembered from my youth. This led to a little digging, where I found that the one ingrained in my memory was actually a 1987 remix included on the singer's greatest hits album, Chronicles.
Feeling let down, I let the album play out, but honestly didn't find it all that enjoyable. The second track, Big Girls Walk Away, was the only other standout among a lackluster presentation of smooth rock. Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of the genre, which could have contributed greatly to my overall disinterest.
At the end of the day, I'd rather just have the 1987 remixed version, which ultimately led me to just buying the greatest hits album noted above. This in and of itself goes against my grain, as I am not a fan of owning compilations because I don't want studios telling me what songs to like. However, this also led to another journey I've decided to embark on. I'm going to start looking into greatest hits albums from the 80's to see if there are songs I have been missing out on because they were new material released only on these particular albums. In the minimal looking I have done so far, it appears this is the case for a lot of stuff.
As for Winwood, despite returning to session work, he would come out guns blazing in 1986 with his biggest selling album to date, Back In The High Life. He would follow this up with the equally successful, Roll With It in 1988. Then the 90's would hit, and things would go down hill from there in a post grunge world. The artist would only release four albums between 1990 and 2008.
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