“Glad”: Here begin selections from John Barleycorn Must Die (1970), Traffic’s best album overall, and the one where they became a Mason-free trio. Winwood’s voice and the joy of the music sell it. The lyric involves several characters enjoying a special elixir, or something. “Medicated Goo”: This celebratory anthem mixes guitar and piano, funky bass, sax riffs, percussion, and more, all pumping to the same steady beat. A campfire jam for progressive ears – ambling, rambling, roaming in the gloaming. “Forty Thousand Headmen”: Percussion and flute add to the ambience of this acoustic tale. This playful song displays both qualities. “Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring”: Steve Winwood is not only one of the finest, funkiest organists in rock, his voice has an edge that sounds like it was born on the other side of the Atlantic.
“Pearly Queen”: After a tender prelude, this song jumps into blues-riff verses and two Hendrixian breaks, followed by an exotic homestretch. Sturdier than their forays into cheap psychedelia (“Hole in My Shoe”, et al), and the chorus sticks in your head. “Smiling Phases”: Motown visits British pop, or vice versa. Maybe the title is an ironic comment on “expanded consciousness”? I don’t know the hippie culture is out of my jurisdiction. “Heaven is in Your Mind”: Catchy verses and a piano-waltz chorus. Their early vision, appropriate for the 1960s, was a blend of worldly-psychedelic-progressive-folk-soul-pop, and as the ‘70s dawned, they became more of a jazz-inflected jam band. For those who don’t know them, Traffic was an English group consisting of Steve Winwood (keys, guitars, vocals, etc), Jim Capaldi (drums, vocals), Chris Wood (reeds), and Dave Mason (guitar and vocals), with the latter departing after the first couple of albums. I’ve never been a rabid fan – their style is so undemanding, I don’t know how anyone could be – but they’ve always been around on somebody’s record shelf, ever since I was a kid, and they made a lot of likeable music. Despite the generic title, it’s a valuable anthology for me, since it has all of my favorite tracks. I’ve recently been listening to the 2-disc Traffic compilation Gold, which came out in 2005.
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