That initial incarnation had Winwood on guitar, keyboards and vocals, Dave Mason on guitar, bass, vocals and occasional sitar, Chris Wood on flute, sax and keyboards, and Jim Capaldi on drums, percussion and vocals, so there were opportunities to mix and match to fit the needs of different songs.
The late sixties was a time for getting things together in the country, but Traffic was ahead of the trend, and there were advantages to communal living when it came to writing and collaborations, and there was a cement patio in front of the cottage outside Aston Tirrold where the quartet could blast away across the countryside on balmy summer nights.
There may even have been a light show.
As far as the first batch of music to emerge from Winwood’s new outfit was concerned, the single Paper Sun was very much of its time, all tables and droning sitars with trippy lyrics and phased effects. A grab bag, if you like, of contemporary flavours and you could say the same thing about the first album, Mr Fantasy, though the influences were spread over the album’s ten tracks rather than bundled up together. But it was the second single, Hole in my Shoe, that really summed up the where are we taking this thing dilemma. It was a substantial hit, but wasn’t the way the band wanted to go as far as live performances were concerned. It also summed up a growing divide between the Winwood-Capaldi-Wood axis and guitarist Dave Mason. Mr Fantasy’s ten tracks split seven-three, the second album (Traffic) five-four with a Capaldi-Mason credit (Vagabond Virgin).
Mason had left after the first album, rejoined for the second, and was gone again by the time the third (Last Exit, a clear the vaults exercise if ever there was one) came out. That appeared to be that as far as Traffic was concerned, but a post-Blind Faith Winwood solo album (provisional title Mad Shadows) turned itself into John Barleycorn Must Die, and the Winwood-Capaldi-Wood trio was up and running again.
But not for long, in that configuration. Winwood had been supplying the bass line using organ pedals, Capaldi wanted to sing rather than sit behind the drum kit, and Mason came and went. Ex-Family bassist Ric Grech had been in Blind Faith, so he was a natural fit to solve the bass issue, while Jim Gordon and Rebop Kwaku Baah looked after the drums and percussion side of things for the live Welcome to the Canteen and the studio Low Spark of High Heeled Boys. Grech and Gordon were gone when it came to Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory, replaced by the Muscle Shoals rhythm section of David Hood and Roger Hawkins, with the same lineup delivering the live On The Road in 1973.
It was back to the core trio and Rosko Gee on bass for When the Eagle Flies, and in the twenty-year gap between that one and Far From Home Chris Wood passed away, leaving Traffic as a two man show.
And with Capaldi’s passing in 2005 that, effectively, was that.
The twenty-first century interest, as far as Hughesy is concerned, lies in revisiting the back catalogue, a move inspired by a blog posting of the 40th anniversary version of John Barleycorn.
So, the Discography….