Winwood deserves higher recognition
DEAR Editor, One of the summer’s big hit records has been Higher Love [a reworked version of Whitney Houston’s cover by Norwegian DJ Kygo].
But I have yet to hear any praise for the writer, Steve Winwood, especially in Birmingham, his home city. Steve is a genius well recognised by his profession. In America he won two Grammys for the song, which was his first US solo Number 1 in 1986, 20 years after he started his professional career.
Birmingham has recently honoured
Black Sabbath at long last, but the Winwood brothers, Steve and Muff, and the Spencer Davis Group deserve recognition as well. Born in Handsworth and educated at Great Barr comprehensive, Steve signed his first record contract at age 14 as part of the Davis group and went on to great success with bands and as a solo artist, Astonishingly creative and a blue eye soul mega star, not many people know he wrote the song Valerie which had five weeks at Number 1 in the UK recorded by Eric Prydz
Birmingham alas does not honour its pop culture. As a teenager in the 1960s, listening to the blues culture where the Winwood brothers cut their teeth, bands like Moody Blues and the Move, I took for granted that the pop charts would have Birmingham bands in nearly every week. It seemed obvious that this rich legacy would be recognised.
Why is talent like Steve Winwood’s not being celebrated even when decades after it breaks into the charts it is shown to have lasting appeal?
Trevor Fisher, Stafford