Steve Winwood & Traffic

Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood (born 12 May 1948 in Handsworth, Birmingham) is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. In addition to his solo career, he was a member of the bands the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith, and Go. His deep singing voice is frequently mistaken to be that of a black musician.^[1]

Early life

He was born in Handsworth, a suburb of the British city of Birmingham. He first became interested in swing and Dixieland jazz. 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.^[2]

Career

Early years: 1960s

While still a pupil at Great Barr School^[3] (which actor Martin Shaw also attended), Winwood was a part of the Birmingham rhythm and blues scene, playing the Hammond B-3 Organ and guitar, backing blues singers such as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Eddie Boyd, Otis Spann, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley on their United Kingdom tours (the custom at that time being for US singers to travel solo and be backed by 'pick-up' bands). At this time Steve was living in Atlantic Avenue in Great Barr close to all the Birmingham music halls he used to play.

At the age of 15 Winwood became a member of the Spencer Davis Group^[4] with his older brother 'Muff' (who later had much success as a record producer). Steve co-wrote and recorded Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm a Man before leaving to form Traffic with Chris Wood, Jim Capaldi and Dave Mason. During this time, Winwood joined forces with guitarist Eric Clapton as part of the one-off group Eric Clapton's Powerhouse. Songs were recorded for the Elektra label but only three tracks were released on the compilation album, What's Shakin'.

During the late-1960s, Winwood and Mason became close friends of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix first heard All Along the Watchtower at a party he was invited to by Mason; they recorded the Hendrix version later that night in a London recording studio. Winwood actually only appeared on one track of Electric Ladyland, "Voodoo Chile". In 1969, Winwood once again gave a powerful organ performance on Joe Cocker's With a Little Help from My Friends ,which was originally written by the Beatles for the Sgt. Pepper album, and later played keyboards on albums as diverse as Toots & the Maytals' Reggae Got Soul and Howlin' Wolf's The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions.

That was snagged from Wiki's site [here], The version I heard was just a little different. I heard that even as a young child he could play almost any instrament (including bed springs), along with almost any tune after only listening to it once or twice.

Doesn't really matter to me tho because I learned a long time ago radio jocks are full of shit and half of what they tell you is a load of crap, other half is rumour.

Steve Winwood is still one of the all time greats and my favorite Album from him would be The Oz Benifit Concert Jam Session called "Welcome To The Canteen"

40,000 Headmen

Dear Mister Fantasy.

I'm a Man

Whatnow123 has a fantastic collection of 23 vids on his DailyMotion page [here] and I subscribed.

Here is a jukebox consisting of his stuff...

This stuff is beyond compare!