Tue 10/22 @ 7:30PM
Steve Winwood has come a long way from his days as a teenage blues/soul prodigy with the Spencer Davis Group in the mid ’60s whose wailing vocals had a depth of feeling that belied his years. Whether that’s a good thing is open to debate.
Still a teenager and fed up with the music scene, he fled to the English countryside with some friends and formed the sui generis Traffic in 1967. Winwood played multiple instruments and sang much of the band’s repertoire, which he penned by drummer Jim Capaldi.
Despite that band’s massive and diverse creativity, it was marked by periods of inactivity when members were diverted into other projects such as Winwood’s stint with Eric Clapton in Blind Faith in 1969.
Traffic petered out by the mid ’70s. Winwood, after stepping away from music for a bit, released his first solo album Winwood in 1977. But it was 1980’s Arc of a Diver, with its huge hit “If You See a Chance” that made Winwood a star on his own.
Unfortunately, as he cruised through the ’80s on easy-listening hits like “Back in the High Life,” “Valerie,” and “Higher Love,” there were fewer and fewer traces of the precocious passion and wisdom he brought to the Spencer Davis Group or the musical adventurism that marked Traffic, who were inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. But there’s no denying the talent’s still there somewhere.
A portion of the ticket sales from Winwood’s concert this week at the Akron Civic Theatre will benefit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s educational programs.
Tickets are $37.50-$85.
Akron, OH 44308