Personalities | Traffic | Sixties | Rock

(Vocal/instrumental group, 1967–69, 1970–74, 1994)

From various also-ran beat groups, Dave Mason (vocals, guitar), Chris Wood (woodwinds) and Jim Capaldi (drums) joined forces with Steve Winwood (vocals, keyboards, guitar) of The Spencer Davis Group. Though ‘Paper Sun’, ‘Hole In My Shoe’ and the Dear Mr Fantasy (1967) LP all charted in Britain, tensions between Winwood and Mason caused the latter’s brief exit early in 1968 and a permanent one after a second album, Traffic (1968). Capaldi and Wood’s help during subsequent sessions for a proposed solo offering by Winwood came to be issued in 1970 as a Traffic album, John Barleycorn Must Die. The group reached a commercial summit with 1971’s million-selling Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys before an over-reliance on long-winded improvisations failed to mask a creative bankruptcy, though there was a return to form with 1974’s When The Eagle Flies finale. In 1994, Winwood and the late Capaldi reformed Traffic for an album, Far From Home, and correlated concerts.

Styles & Forms | Sixties | Rock
Personalities | The Tremeloes | Sixties | Rock

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, general editor Michael Heatley

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