Steve Winwood Tickets

Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. In addition to his solo career, he made great contributions to the bands the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Go and Blind Faith as their valuable member.

Career
Winwood started representing Birmingham rhythm and blues scene by playing the Hammond B-3 Organ and guitar and backing blues singers While he was a pupil at Great Barr School. He backed blue 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.

At the age of 15 Winwood became a member of the Spencer Davis Group with his older brother 'Muff'. "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm A Man" were co-wrotten and recorded by Steve. Then he left the group and was successful in forming the band Traffic with Chris Wood, Jim Capaldi and Dave Mason.

Winwood and Mason became close friends of Jimi Hendrix during the late-1960s. Mason once invited Hendris to a party where he first heard "All Along the Watchtower". The Hendrix version was recorded later that night in a London recording studio. Winwood played often with Hendrix, featuring prominently on Electric Ladyland.

Again In 1969, Winwood was successful in giving a powerful organ performance on Joe Cocker's "With a Little Help from My Friends". Later on, keyboards on albums as diverse as Toots & The Maytals' Reggae Got Soul and Howlin' Wolf's The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions were played by him.

The band ?Blind Faith' was formed by him in 1969 with Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Ric Grech. The band survived for a short period due to Clapton's greater interest in Blind Faith's opening act Delaney & Bonnie & Friends. Clapton left the band after the tour had ended. However, Baker, Winwood and Grech stayed together to form Ginger Baker's Air Force. The lineup consisted of basically 3/4 of Blind Faith (sans Clapton, replaced by Denny Laine), 2/3 of Traffic (Winwood and Chris Wood, minus Jim Capaldi), plus musicians who interacted with Baker in his early days. They include Phil Seamen, Harold McNair and Graham Bond. But this supergroup also proved to be another short-lived project.

Winwood soon went into the studio to begin work on a new solo album, tentatively titled Mad Shadows. However, Winwood ended up calling Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi in to help with session work, which instead prompted Traffic's comeback album John Barleycorn Must Die. Winwood has always said that the sound of John Barleycorn Must Die really reflects what Winwood intended Traffic to be.

Winwood played guitar on the Fania All Stars' "Delicate and Jumpy" record in 1976. With a memorable sell-out concert at London's Lyceum Ballroom, Winwood performed as a guest with the band in their only UK appearance.

Traffic's final break-up was the result of the constant artistic differences and personnel changes and Winwood's release of his eponymous first solo album in 1977. His 1980 hit Arc Of A Diver, and Talking Back To The Night in 1982 were his next two albums. Both albums were recorded at his home in Gloucestershire and all instruments were played by Winwood. To record Back in the High Life (1986) in the US, He enlisted the help of a coterie of stars. He was again rewarded with a hit album. Island Records released all of his albums. Winwood has the honor of topping the Billboard Hot 100 with "Higher Love". In 1986.

Winwood moved to Virgin Records at the peak of his commercial success. He released Roll With It and Refugees Of The Heart with Virgin Records. The album Roll With It and the title track hit #1 on the album and singles charts in the summer of 1988.

Another album was recorded by him with Jim Capaldi which was released under the Traffic name, Far From Home. Then he was able to resume his solo career with his final Virgin album Junction Seven.

In 1994, Traffic was reunited for a new album, "Far From Home", and one-off tour by Capaldi and Winwood . It also included a performance at Woodstock II Festival. The same year, Winwood appears on "A Tribute To Curtis Mayfield" CD, recording Mayfield's "It's Allright".

"Reach for the Light (Theme from Balto)" was released by Winwood in 1995 and 1996.

In 2003, A new studio album, About Time was released by Winwood on his new record label, Wincraft Music. Johnson Somerset was the co producer of this album.