Courtesy
of Bobbie G of Smiling Phases.
1967:
Traffic were formed by Winwood, Wood, Capaldi and Mason in 1967 shortly
after Winwood had left the Spencer Davis Group. He had played with Eric
Clapton in a short-lived studio band called Powerhouse, which contributed
some tracks to the Elektra sampler “What’s Shaking”. Winwood had also jammed
with Wood, Capaldi and Mason in clubs around the Birmingham area prior
to leaving the Spencer Davis Group. The four of them resided at a cottage
in Aston Tirrold in Berkshire for six months in order to - as the saying
went - get it together in the country. They introduced themselves with
the single “Paper Sun”, which reached No. 5 in Britain. That and its sequel,
“Hole In My Shoe”, encapsulated the summer of 1967 as accurately as any
overt flower-power anthem. The debut album “Mr. Fantasy”, was a successful
vehicle of the talents of the entire group, and served notice that Traffic
would be more than merely a backing band for Winwood. However, Mason’s
flair for light melody was straightaway at odds with the more jazz-oriented
ambitions of the other members, and he departed in December of 1967.
1968:
Mason returned in a matter of months to help out on the second album, “Traffic”,
to which he contributed “Feelin’ Alright”. Traffic were featured, along
with the Spencer Davis Group, on the United Artists soundtrack to the film
“Here we go round the mulberry bush”. Later that year, Mason quit again,
leaving the entire band to call it a day.
1969:
“Last Exit” was their farewell album. Island Records, their British company,
administering the last rites, issued a “Best Of Traffic” in 1969.
Winwood meanwhile had again joined Clapton in Blind Faith and when
that collapsed, temporarily enlisted in Ginger Baker’s Air Force. Wood,
meanwhile did sessions with Dr John.
1970:
Winwood planned a solo album, tentatively entitled “Mad Shadows”. He called
in Wood and Capaldi to help out on the sessions, and as a result Traffic
was formed as a trio, and in April released the incomparable “John
Barleycorn Must Die”, which showed the band’s ability to merge jazz, rock
and traditional folk-music and was also a magnificent tribute to Winwood’s
superb versatility, since he contributed the lion’s share of the instrumentation.
Since Winwood was handling all guitars, keyboards and vocals, the pressure
on him inevitably proved too great, and in November Rick Grech was added
to the line-up.
1971:
Traffic expanded the personnel again with a percussionist, Reebop; and
for a short British tour in the summer of 1971, ex-Domino Jim Gordon came
in to bolster the rhythm section, and the errant Mason again returned to
the fold. This line-up played only a few dates together, but the live recording
“Welcome To The Canteen” was recommendation enough of their corporate abilities.
At the end of the year “The Low Spark of The High-Heeled Boys”, was issued
while the band were touring America; it went gold in the US in 1972, and
was made by the line-up as before, with the inevitable exception of Mason
who had left again.
1972:
When the band returned from America, Grech and Gordon, too, had departed
along the way. The band was now again in a state of flux, despite the excellence
of their last albums. It proved an academic problem, since Winwood fell
ill with peritonitis, and Capaldi adjourned to Muscle Shoals to make a
solo album “Oh! How We Danced”; while there he established connections
with Muscle Shoals sessioneers David Hood (bass) and Roger Hawkins (drums)
who joined the band for “Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory”, which was recorded
in Jamaica in 1972.
1973:
With Winwood recovered, the band set out on a 1973 world tour, for which
they added Barry Beckett, also from Muscle Shoals, on keyboards. The vitality
and strength of this line-up was fully demonstrated on the made-in-Germany
live double-album, “On The Road”. Traffic appeared in the movie “Glastonbury
Fayre”.
1974:
The Muscle Shoals recruits bowed out after this tour, and for an English
tour in 1974 Roscoe Gee the bass-player from Gonzales, was added; since
Reebop disappeared somewhere along the way, the band completed the tour
in the form which they had originally started, the last performance of
the tour was held at the Reading Festival on August 31, 1974. After the
final album “When The Eagle Flies”, which was very good instrumentally,
but marred by some over-ambitious Capaldi lyrics, the band again went into
one of its regular periods of hibernation; this time it proved to be for
good, since no one apparently any longer had the will-power to hold it
all together.
