Steve Winwood (born 12 May 1948) is an English musician whose genres include rock, blue-eyed soul, rhythm and blues, blues rock, pop rock, and jazz. Though primarily a vocalist and keyboardist, Winwood also plays bass guitar, drums, guitar, mandolin, violin, and other strings. Winwood was a key member of The Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith, and Go. He also had a successful solo career with hits including "While You See a Chance", "Valerie", "Back in the High Life Again" and two US Billboard Hot 100 number ones: "Higher Love" and "Roll with It". In 2005, Winwood was honoured as a BMI Icon at the annual BMI London Awards for his "enduring influence on generations of music makers." In 2008, Rolling Stone ranked Winwood #33 in its 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. Winwood has won two Grammy Awards. (More from Wikipedia)
To some extent at least, the formation of Cream grew out of an English all-star band called the Powerhouse that was assembled solely to provide music for a 1966 compilation album called What's Shakin' that announced the arrival of Elektra Records in Great Britain. Bandmembers included Eric Clapton (guitar); Jack Bruce (bass guitar) and Paul Jones (harmonica) from Manfred Mann; Stevie Winwood (lead vocals) and Pete York (drums) from the Spencer Davis Group; and Ben Palmer (piano), who had briefly been in a band with Clapton in 1965. Ginger Baker was originally slated to be the drummer for the group but was unavailable. This remarkable line-up included two members of Cream (and almost all three), plus two future members of Blind Faith (Clapton and Winwood). What's more, Cream later recorded two of the only three songs ever made by this assemblage, Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" and an instrumental called "Steppin' Out" that Eric Clapton had previously performed while in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. The artist on these two songs was listed as Eric Clapton & the Powerhouse. The third song, "I Want to Know" was credited to MacLeod, an evident reference to Paul Jones' wife Sheila MacLeod; Ten Years After included "I Want to Know" on their first album, Ten Years After that was released in late 1967.
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Blind Faith formed shortly after the break-up of Cream. Eric Clapton had been trying to bring Stevie Winwood into Cream to act as a sort of buffer between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker – actually that probably wouldn't have worked out, since I heard that Baker and Winwood didn't get along in Blind Faith. As with the formation of Cream itself, Eric Clapton and Stevie Winwood were frustrated with their present bands. Cream had better amplifiers toward the end, and Jack Bruce was pushing the volume up during concerts, so Ginger Baker was having difficulty getting his drums heard above the roar. Eric Clapton said that he stopped playing during a Cream concert once, and neither Jack Bruce nor Ginger Baker even noticed; he also characterized later Cream performances as the bandmembers showing off.
In the same time period, Stevie Winwood was feeling hamstrung in the Spencer Davis Group, where he had been their lead singer for years. He had wanted to introduce a more experimental, jazz-inflected sound into the band; eventually he left the group and formed his own band called Traffic in 1967.
When Traffic broke up temporarily in 1969, Stevie Winwood began jamming with Eric Clapton; they had played together previously in the Powerhouse. Ginger Baker sat in one time in 1969, and he was a natural as the band's drummer. Clapton was reluctant to team up with Baker again so soon after Cream broke up, but Winwood convinced him that they would never find a more talented drummer than Baker. The three invited Rick Grech (also known as Ric Grech) to join the group; he was the bass guitarist in Family and left that band mid-tour to join Blind Faith.
Despite the fact that one-half of Blind Faith was previously two-thirds of Cream, their album seemed dominated instead by Stevie Winwood; besides handling lead vocalist duties, Winwood wrote half of the songs, with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker each contributing one.
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After appearing only at the Concert for Bangladesh that George Harrison organized in 1972, Pete Townshend of the Who brought together an allstar line-up for a 1973 concert intended to bring Eric Clapton out of hiding and to help him kick his habit. Known as the Rainbow Concert, musicians on hand include Rick Grech and Stevie Winwood from Blind Faith, Jim Capaldi (who had co-founded Traffic with Winwood), Anthony "Reebop" Kwaku Baah (a percussionist from Ghana who played with Traffic and also the German band Can), Ron Wood (then in Faces), and drummer Jimmy Karstein (who was on hand for the final album by Buffalo Springfield).
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Meanwhile, Ginger Baker was putting together a supergroup and a double album of his own. Ginger Baker's Air Force – described in Wikipedia as a rock-jazz fusion band – was organized from the ashes of Blind Faith and featured the other three musicians in the band besides Eric Clapton: Ginger Baker (drums, percussion and vocals), Stevie Winwood (organ and vocals), and Rick Grech (violin and bass guitar). Others on hand in the 10-piece band include Baker's former bandmate Graham Bond, Denny Laine (one of the original members of the Moody Blues – he sang lead on their early hit "Go Now" – and later a key member of Paul McCartney and Wings), Chris Wood (another founding member of Traffic), and Wood's wife Jeanette Jacobs (previously in the New York band the Cake).
(May 2014)
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One glance at the album cover for Saved proves beyond doubt that Bob Dylan was serious with his Christian period. The album art is by a veteran in that field, Tony Wright; two of his designs – for Traffic's The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (1971) and Steve Winwood's Arc of a Diver (1980) – were named among the 100 Greatest Album Covers by Rolling Stone magazine.
In order to downplay the Christian message in the Saved album (if that's possible), the cover painting was later replaced with a painting of Dylan in performance.
(August 2014)
