All New Traffic Cops S10e05

At only 22 years old, Steve Winwood sat down in early 1970 to fulfill a contractual commitment by making his first solo album, on which he intended to play all the instruments himself. The record got as far as one backing track produced by Guy Stevens, "Stranger to Himself," before Winwood called his erstwhile partner from Traffic, Jim Capaldi, in to help out. The two completed a second track, "Every Mother's Son," then, with Winwood and Island Records chief Chris Blackwell moving to the production chores, brought in a third Traffic member, Chris Wood, to work on the sessions. Thus, Traffic, dead and buried for more than a year, was reborn…

It could be argued that, in its most basic form, Traffic was a vehicle for the songs of Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, who wrote most of the material and on some tracks were the only musicians performing. But the question of whether Winwood and Capaldi could validly constitute Traffic by themselves was not addressed until 1994, 20 years after the group disbanded, when the two surprisingly announced they would be recording and touring under their old band name. The album they made together sounded for the most part like a Winwood solo album. He played most of the instruments and sang (Capaldi drummed and sang occasional backup vocals), and he didn't show much interest in the lengthy instrumental passages that characterized Traffic in its heyday…