Traffic - The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys (1971 uk, flavorful jazz prog rock, 2002 bonus track remaster)

If there’s one song that best illustrates the talent and imagination of Steve Winwood, it’s the 11-minute title track of Traffic’s fifth album, a hypnotic jazz-rock masterpiece and a searing indictment of the music industry. 

The song rose up from a lyric Jim Capaldi roused himself to write about the withering effects of the music business on the artist. To this Winwood introduced a musical backdrop that moved like shifting sand: neither solely rock, blues or jazz, but each and more besides, changing almost from one bar to the next. 

Altogether, and elsewhere on this, Traffic’s most restless record, shades and styles got jumbled up in the same pot, shaken into new shapes, then broken down and started up again. “It kind of sums up Traffic in a way,” Capaldi said at the time. “The eclectic-ness – you can’t put your finger on it at all, yet you know it’s familiar.”

"Stevie Winwood and I both grew up in the midlands," Glenn Hughes told us, choosing Low Spark... as one of the records that changed his life. "I was mad about his earlier band the Spencer Davis Group, but Traffic really hooked me in. I adored his Hammond organ playing and the subtlety and drama of his voice. Not many people would know that Stevie was a huge influence upon me whilst I was in my mid-teens, and he continued to be so all though my twenties and early thirties."

Classic-Rock, 16 August 2021

Tracks

1. Hidden Treasure (Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood) - 4:12

2. The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys (Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood) - 11:44

3. Light Up Or Leave Me Alone (Jim Capaldi) - 4:51

4. Rock 'n' Roll Stew (Jim Gordon, Rick Grech) - 4:27

5. Many A Mile To Freedom (Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood) - 7:18

6. Rainmaker (Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood) - 7:52

7. Rock 'n' Roll Stew (Parts 1,2) (Jim Gordon, Rick Grech) - 6:10

Bonus Track 7, single version

Traffic

*Steve Winwood - Guitar, Keyboards, Lead Vocals, Organ, Piano

*Chris Wood - Flute, Saxophone, Wind

*Jim Capaldi - Drums, Keyboards, Lead Vocals, Percussion

*Rick Grech - Bass,Violin

*Jim Gordon - Drums

*Rebop Kwaku Baah - Percussion

1968  Traffic - Traffic (2018 remaster and expanded)  

1969  Traffic - Last Exit (SHM remaster)

1970  Traffic - John Barleycorn Must Die (japan SHM and 2011 deluxe double disc edition)
1971  Traffic - Welcome To The Canteen (SHM remaster)
1973  Traffic - On The Road (SHM remaster)
Related Acts
1965  The Spencer Davis Group - Their First LP 
1966  The Spencer Davis Group - The Second Album

1966  The Spencer Davis Group - Autumn '66 (2007 japan bonus tracks edition)

1966-68  Deep Feeling - Pretty Colours
1972  Jim Capaldi - Oh How We Danced (2012 extra track edition)
1973-74  Jim Capaldi - Whale Meat Again (2012 remaster)

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