Entertainment For Lively Minds
Steve Winwood - English Soul
Posted by stimpy on 28 February 2011 - 1:58pm.
Just watched last nights BBC documentary about Stevie Winwood. A good little programme with interviews with the man himself, Muff, Paul Jones, Eric, etc etc. Definitely worth catching if you have any interest in Spencer Davis, Traffic etc etc. The sort of doco that BBC4 does so well.
Loads of good footage of him, noteably playing the organ in his parish church (as, apparently, he does every Sunday) and a fifteen year old Stevie dong a perfect Ray Charles impression on Georgia.
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Seconded.
And how good it was to see a "rock star" who was modest, eloquent, personable and a thoroughly decent individual. I dug out my copy of John Barleycorn the day after and reminded myself what a wonderfully talented musician he is, too.
Georgia On My Mind
Yeah, I've seen this documentary
The best moment for me was when he he went back to the cottage in Aston-Tirrold for the first time since 1969. Here it was that Traffic "got it together in the country".
I've always been a huge fan of Winwood's early work with SDG, Traffic and Blind Faith, but in the late-70s he seemed to disappear into the lucrative world of US FM rock and that was the end of my interest in him.
He can still turn it on though.
Ignore the incongruous intruder on piano and focus on the organ and singing.
(Looks like a young Brian Wilson on timbales as well)
There was a lovely moment on the BBC4 doc when he started up the old Hammond in his home studio. It was like someone firing up a much-loved classic car.
Huzzahh for the Beeb 4 docs..
..I saw this a while ago and it was highly watchable. Almost as good as the recent Ray Davies doc (Julian Temple absolutely on the money)
The idea of taking the artist around some of their old and current haunts really sets these programmes apart from the run-of-the mill talking heads / footage format.
Oh and Reggae Britannia was sublime - miles better than I was expecting
Great documentary
and if I remember correctly from when this originally aired, the programme was directed by a member of the Massive - Paul Bernays.
Nice work, Paul.
Aw shucks
Thanks Drakey - and all others, glad you enjoyed.
Do you mind if I send a copy to
one of our Australian friends who won't otherwise get to see it?
I don't want to bang on about the greatness of sixties music,
well actually I do, but it is quite remarkable how many gifted young prodigies there were in those times, many of whom went on to have long fruitful careers though they all went somewhat awry in the eighties - 'oh no not that again' I hear some of you cry - and Windwood he also went a tad wayward, reluctantly persuaded to follow trends to futher his career, which of course paid off handsomely, but he now rues those past commercial pressures that led to much wealth. And so many of these 'greats' then admit they know when they were really good (see also our friend Elt) as they head towards their twilight years and revisit that style that represented their peak once more, which critical consensus had already asserted, honestly recognising what their best work really was, dismissing the wrong turns, which of course they knew perfectly well all along but can now acknowledge and finally rest on their laurels and have a bit of a last hurrah going back to their first love and sod what's in and what's out.
..in the unlikely event...
...that things get a bit tight on the fiscal front for Unlce Reg, I'm sure he wouldn't think twice about bringing in some distant cousin of Nikita to help pay the taxman.
Winwood and Elton are two very different kettles of fish. The former has never consistently courted fame. At most points in Winwood’s career the key motivation has been music. I don’t think the same can be said of Elton. No matter how much he dislikes the lack of privacy, he strikes me as someone who needs to be the centre of attention and who has something of an addiction to spending.
Furthermore – Higher Love and Roll With It, commercial though they may be, are great pop tunes.
But does a desire to be the centre of attention
and/or to have a spending addiction make the music any more or less good? I think they're irrelevant, although they obviously define major differences between the two people.
I think, in Reg's defence, that he's probably issued a few "contractual obligation" albums and been under more commercial pressure to put out material that's either sub-par or needed more work. But if you read the (terrific) interview in the current edition, you can't be left in any doubt that the man loves and adores music.
Exactly
We assume these gifted people like Steve Winwood just do as they please, only making music for themselves. But after Traffic ended and he needed to get a career back he made some compromises it seems he may have regretted according to the film shown on BBC4, or that he went in a direction he was unhappy with with hindsight. This is not uncommon - other 'great's have suffered such a fate, lucrative though it may have been. The eighties were a time when this happened a lot due to a fear of no longer having audience. Clearly some of the hits he had were fine tunes though with unfortunate production values. Elton certainly put out a greater volume of lesser fare than Winwood but he similarly had a golden period which he seems to appreciate now he can take stock, look back on his career and assess his acheivements more easily. You see this with such veterans in their live performance - they realise, and knew all along, what their best work is and focus more and more on that part of their back catalogue.