Steve Winwood returns to his roots with `About Time'.

Bradenton Herald, FL

May 1, 2003

By Rod Harmon 

Steve Winwood's new album, due in stores June 17, is aptly titled "About Time."

Since reaching his commercial peak in the late 1980s, the multi-instrumentalist with the unmistakable voice has taken almost as much time to record new material as Boston. It's been six years since his last studio album, "Junction 7," and there was a seven-year span between that release and its predecessor, 1990's "Refugees of the Heart."

Some of it had to do with Winwood embarking on long tours with Latin legends Tito Puente and Arturo Sandovar, and tooling around his small farm in England. But there's also an underlying current of disappointment with the industry's large-scale abandonment of older artists in its never-ending quest for the next big thing.

"Record companies put pressure on artists through A&R and production to make a kind of album that fits in with their idea of how they can market it," Winwood said recently from London. "I have to admit that I was probably influenced, and to some degree, fell foul of that through the '80s and '90s. So now, I'm definitely trying to distance myself from that."

Winwood began influencing the music scene before he even began to shave. He was only 15 when he joined the Spencer Davis Group, for which he co-wrote the monster hits "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm a Man." In 1967, he formed Traffic, a jazz-rock fusion project that became one of the biggest bands of the prog-rock era with albums such as "Mr. Fantasy," "John Barleycorn Must Die" and "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys."

Winwood was also a member of the short-lived "supergroups" Blind Faith and Ginger Baker's Air Force. But he achieved his greatest success as a solo artist in the '80s with the pop albums "Arc of a Diver," "Back in the High Life" and "Roll With It." The overt commercialism of this period drove his work toward a more polished vein, and his once eclectic music became the epitome of adult contemporary.

When "Junction 7" tanked in 1997, it was almost a blessing in disguise.

"After `Junction 7,' I wanted to do something that was perhaps a little more me," Winwood said. "I decided to wait until I was sure I was doing the right thing."

The self-produced "About Time" combines Winwood's roots in jazz, R&B and rock with world music. With the exception of a couple of tracks, the only musicians on the album are Winwood, guitarist Jose Neto and drummer Walfredo Reyes Jr. _ the most stripped-down band he's recorded with since "John Barleycorn" in 1970.

The decision to play without a bass player returned Winwood's attention to the Hammond B-3 organ, which he had used so effectively on those early Spencer Davis hits. He spent several months in intensive study, and listened to everything he could get his hands on, from the '50s to the present, that featured the instrument.

"It's something that has always interested me immensely," he said. "I also like the idea of bands that don't always have the traditional setup. Working without a bass player, you have to make up for that percussion, and it makes for a lot of interesting combinations."

Now the challenge comes in recreating that sound in concert, both with the new material and Winwood's wide repertoire that pulls from every period of his career.

"In a way, I suppose it's a bit of a gamble, but I am very, very excited about it," he said. "There is a flexibility and a fluidity in the playing that is harder to get when you're in a big band. With a smaller unit, you can work much more in improvised forms and move much more easily from section to section. You can also cover much more material as well. I plan on playing a lot more material than I've done on past tours by adding and taking out songs on different nights."

It sounds like Steve Winwood the hit maker is gone, and Steve Winwood the artist has returned.

It's about time.

"I very much want to make the kind of records that I want to make rather than be guided by or influenced by corporate involvement," he said. "Hopefully, people will identify with that, and will listen to the record and enjoy it."