The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys 1971 Album

Traffic

The first few albums from Traffic which paired the songwriting partnership of Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi with Dave Mason dug heartily into the realms of FM-style art rock with pronounced psychedelic edges, much like their Island label mates (Spooky Tooth and Family). By the time the band made it to this album, Mason was long gone; replacing him were renowned session drummer Jim Gordon, bass player Rick Grech (Winwood's pal from Blind Faith), and African percussionist Rebop Kwaku Baah. The big band concept had worked on the previous live record Welcome To The Canteen (cut with Mason) so it was carried over to the studio. The new sound was perfect…if you had time to kill, and no problem with a small batch of obscure melodies stretched to jam-band lengths. Oh yes - almost forgot - with Winwood playing only rhythm guitars, all the solos come from Chris Wood's banks of saxes/flutes or Stevie's weird-sounding jazz hall pianos and guitar-aping keyboards. It's hard to get a handle on this faux-intellectual claptrap and probably better to locate where the good grooves are, because from here on out the terms "Traffic album" and "unremarkable stretches" go hand-in-hand. It's their charm and curse.