Licensed to jam
Jim Irvin. The studio output of Traffic reassessed. At the wheel,
TO TRAFFIC: The Studio Albums 19671974 (UMC), a stylishly presented box of six albums on remastered vinyl with fully restored sleeve artwork and bonus posters. Traffic was a restless outfit which appeared to dissolve and regroup every six months, and spent their seven years semitogether in a concerted, occasionally successful search for “Vibe!”
It began when teenaged soul sensation Stevie Winwood walked away from the chart-topping Spencer Davis Group early in 1967. His reasons were never entirely clear, but it may have been because their R&B sound, exciting though it was, had been usurped by new enthusiasms post Pepper, post pot. Within weeks, his new quartet, an amalgam of notable Midlands faces, had famously “got it together in the country” and, flutes and sitars to the fore, emerged with some perfect soundtracks for the moment: the shimmering Paper Sun, whimsical Hole In My Shoe – both big hits – and the varied and entertaining December 1967 debut album, Mr Fantasy (HHHH), cut at Olympic Studios with Jimmy Miller. Heaven Is In Your Mind got busy with the stereo panning, Berkshire Poppies was a sing-along knees-up Small Faces-style (and indeed Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane and Ian McLagan were present, singing along), Dave Mason’s stoned philosophy set to sitar, Utterly Simple was bang on trend, but with (flop single) No Face, No Name And No
Number, Winwood suddenly matured before our ears. An eerie blend of harpsichord, mellotron, acoustic guitar and flute summoned up a cloud of perfumed smoke, and Steve wandered through it sounding serious and vulnerable. Dear Mr Fantasy and Coloured Rain delivered similar effects.
Fairly soon, Mason was feeling unappreciated – despite writing the catchiest songs – unavoidably in the shadow of Winwood, whose presence in a performance was unmistakeable, wielding a voice with readymade church-shaped ambience, which tended to receive all the attention. Mason left and rejoined between Mr Fantasy and its follow-up Traffic
(HHH), which consequently felt less freewheeling, more circumspect, with only Winwood’s desolate No Time To Live and the Hendrixy Pearly Queen hitting the spot (and, in so doing, providing Paul Weller a template for his solo career)
After a patchy, poorly recorded half-live album and a Best Of (neither in this box), Traffic was declared done by 1969, as Winwood wandered off again to join
Blind Faith, which promised to be vibe-rich. When it turned out to be bad-viberich, Winwood resurrected Traffic with just Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and guests to quietly make the 1970 masterpiece, John Barleycorn Must Die (HHHHH) which, over six long songs, explored folk, jazz, soul and gospel, and dug up vibe by the spadeful, each track providing scope for extended improv. Yes, Traffic did jam, thanks for asking.
To take that album’s vision on the road, the band had to expand, and a loose-limbed seven-man aggregation cut two albums which became calling cards in the US but completely missed back home, Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys (HHHH) and Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory (HH), the ones with the die-cut “box-shaped” covers. Episodes of communal, soulful blowing, the hippy trippy Rainmaker and greasy Rock’n’Roll Stew made perfect sense on FM radio in America but didn’t match the prevailing mood in the UK.
Traffic slimmed down and simplified again for their last hurrah, When The Eagle Flies (HHHH), released in 1974. For my money, Dream Gerrard, an 11-minute odyssey written around preposterous lyrics by Viv Stanshall, is the finest thing they recorded. But this excellent long-player was met with an audible shrug and Traffic stalled for the next 20 years, while Vibe was sought elsewhere.
Steve Winwood – at least 14 albums into his career – was 26.
“Yes, Traffic did jam, thanks for asking…”