“The great influences were people like B.B. and Freddie King, T-Bone Walker – then ‘Little Hubert,’ Hubert Sumlin,” says Winwood. “Also Buddy Guy and Otis Rush, and we were discovering people like Louisiana Red in the early ’60s. There was a certain camaraderie with everyone who played it. In fact, when I was 16 years old and left school and left home, I went to London, and Eric Clapton, who was three years older than me, kind of took me under his wing – a bit like an older brother. We listened to a lot of stuff; he played me a lot of stuff, I played him some stuff. There were fewer people playing guitar like that then. There was a big excitement about that music. My brother had a band, and in his band he had some guys who were at art college. A lot of the guys at art college were big blues enthusiasts. They used to bring me records to hear all the time, just because they knew I was interested. It was a bit of a clique.”
“Of course, the music business got much more corporate and much more focused on marketing since the late ’60s,” Winwood feels. “Record companies became big business. In the earlier ’60s, you had the main record companies, but the companies who were putting out the more interesting stuff were more like what we’d call boutique labels today – with people who were kind of like playboy mavericks who were music lovers. I think you could even go back to Atlantic Records and Ahmet Ertegun, which were also in the same ilk. It was much more about the music than the marketing and promotion.”
Interview By Dan Forte / Vintage Guitar
Photo: Fin Costello
Steve Winwood - Now The Green Blade Riseth
a message from Steve (five years ago) for the National Music Council of the United States
Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Chile (Electric Ladyland [Steve Winwood organ, Jack Casady bass, Mitch Mitchell drums [and here featuring Linda McCartney’s picture of the band playing in New York’s Central Park and would have been Jimi’s choice for the cover as he didn’t think the nude models were respectful enough]
and then the world began!
Well it IS Friday!
"Voodoo Chile" evolved from "Catfish Blues", a song that Jimi Hendrix performed regularly during 1967 and early 1968. "Catfish Blues" was a homage to Muddy Waters, made up of a medley of verses based on Waters' songs, including "Rollin' Stone", "Still a Fool", and "Rollin' and Tumblin'".
“Voodoo Chile” was first released as the fourth track on Hendrix’s 1968 album, Electric Ladyland. If you thought “Free Bird” and “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” were extensively long, “Voodoo Chile” runs just one second short of 15 minutes. The lyrical sections are broken up by long instrumentals, putting Hendrix’s electric guitar skills on full display. It is the longest song Hendrix ever recorded.
Since “Voodoo Chile” ran so long, the last song on Electric Ladyland is a shortened version, titled “Voodoo Child (Slight Return).” They cut the song down by ten minutes, leaving it at just over five minutes long.
Jefferson Airplane bassist Jack Casady played bass on the original 15-minute studio jam of "Voodoo Chile". He recalled to Uncut magazine: "It wasn't as simple as a jam, there was a full structure to the song, so it was an extended song that you able to improvise in. We took directions through the language of playing. Jimi was able to experiment with his ability and with effects in order to create an atmosphere. 'Voodoo Chile' has a really eerie sound that kind of places you in a different world."
“I always felt a need to work with the people with crazy, vibrant ideas. I needed those wild ideas, otherwise my music would be too tame. But they needed me as much as I needed them – I had to tame their ideas…”
Unlike many of the musicians he’s collaborated with, Steve Winwood is something of a survivor. Indeed, he’s managed to pack the work of a few lifetimes into his seven decades years – from jazz bootcamp as a child, and teenage adoration as an R&B star with The Spencer Davis Group, to heralding the psychedelic revolution with Traffic, enduring the trials of a “complex” supergroup with Blind Faith, and then huge popularity as a solo artist and MTV mainstay. Then there’s the piles of albums he’s played on as a guest, records by John Martyn, George Harrison, Van Morrison, Talk Talk, Paul Weller, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix and more.
“Jimi came across as a bit of a wildman,” he says. “But all that early grounding in music is what made his music great. That’s probably why he wanted me to play on ‘Voodoo Chile’, maybe he recognised that I’d been through a similar sort of thing as him.”
It used to go like that . . . . . . now it goes like this . . . . . . .if you heard the ARMS concert for Ronnie Lane and heard this new blistering riff and wondered where it came from (Dave Mason?)! . . . here ‘tis
Steve Winwood & Carlos Santana “Why Can’t We Live Together” Live @ Montreux 2004
aaah there’s the rub . . . . .slightly melancholy this morning and the mist hasn’t lifted yet cannot see the end of the street . . . . . . . hence the Lenny, the Sill and this . . . . . . as you were
Why do we do it?! Why this is WHY WE DO IT! Ladies and Gentleman Mr John Hiatt and The Nashville Queens - Tennessee Plates Loreley 1997
So Speedy at So Many Roads has been getting some flack from folk about downloading from hosting sites and has been doing an experiment with several recent posts where he has offered ten sites for our delectation and usage to see how we get around the cost and size issues (for him hosting) with recent issues we also shared elsewhere for those of us stumbling with Kraken (for eg)
He has tried several John Hiatt and a couple of Steve Winwood and his bezzie mate Eric Claptrap!
I found a work around led me back to Kraken but join in and see what you think,
All were Back-to-Backs that Speedy loves sharing as in shows from the same sets and concert series and these are no exception and the first EC/SW were both audience recordings that I don’t usually bother with anymore but hey, it’s not about that!
Now as I said to Speedy the first four I tried were ok and some hosts were much of a muchness and yet I came back around full circle with Kraken to the work around that IF the link opens another window just shut it down until it downloads the file. If you click on things from the newly opened page it tends to try to install Opera (no bad thing as it goes and works as a VPR as well so . . . . but I already have it as amongst my web browsers and it is really irritating to keep offering it! However persevere with the click, turning the opening page off and it WILL down load the music file even after sometimes four attempts but one if you’re lucky (are you following and taking note?
"As you know, I'm testing a new mirrors site that provides 10 download hosts. It only works for folders under 500 mb, but since that's most of what I post, it should work in 90% of the cases.
Some advice with it:
After clicking on the link in the post, you'll go to the first mirrored to page. Be sure you scroll down to the blue box that says "click here to view file links". Click on that box.
On the next page, is the list of the 10 sites. I have found Kraken, Send.cm and GoFile to be the easiest and fastest.
When you click on one of the sites on the page discussed above, you'll go to a new page. Be sure you scroll down to the blue box where it says "Click here to visit the page on name of host you picked". Click on that blue box.
You'll now be on the download site you picked. Each has its own instructions. With SEND.cm, for example, just click on the blue box that says download.
Hope that all helps. Tough these days to find a a host that works quickly and easily for both uploads and downloads. Believe me, in 15 years of running this place, I've been through dozens, some great, some awful, and some that vanished overnight, taking down hundreds of links. No host will be perfect for everyone so hoping chocie of 10 might help!"
So I replied thusly:
Well Hi Speedy, For what it’s worth! Here I found that the 2 Clapton Winwood sets and the Second Hiatt downloaded best with a work around using Kraken ironically?) it does try to install or send a link for Opera but if you click on the file and it opens another window I find shutting said page repeatedly will do the trick and download just fine - does that make sense?) The Hiatt came down using Gofile quite well actually but Turbofile was the worst so far of the four I tried taking an age to download. Onefichier wasn't any better TBF! So back to Kraken and given the work around took seconds rather than minutes and the others which took over an hour! Hope that is helpful will try the others when I can but what a wonderful effort from you to make a selection of ten to try. Fabulous work mon brave!
These were the ten Speedy had us sample and as I said of those I tried Turbo and 1fichier were the poorest and Megaup we knew and FilesDL but came back around to Kraken (”KF”) whom I found the fastest. Turbo the lowest speed [who has that many hours to download for free?, if you pay who knows (not me! Nothing if not cheap!) and Mega has issues around how much you can store and for how long and whilst it may be fast for us as users I think for hosts its a bit grim!
Try em and see what you think, why you could even let Speedy know!
FOR SPEEDY!
Memphis In The Meantime - John Hiatt!
From a German broadcast in 1997. The band is The Nashville Queens: Davey Faragher on bass, David Immergluck on guitars, Gary Ferguson on drums
Full Set the Rockpalast - Loreley 1997! TURN IT RIGHT UP!
I found this too wandering around Facebook I think and it really got to me . . . . . . .
Handle Me With Care - The Tribute to George 2004
Stevie Winwood, Jeff Lyne, Tom Petty and Dhani Harrison
Maybe it’s just me but somehow the melancholic air here is almost unbearably sad . . . . .to these ears. So glad to see lovely Dhani but the loss of Tom and of course George is too too sad
where Stevie came from . . . mostly accepted as a vehicle for Stevie Winwood to learn his chops and once the Winwood brothers had split (Stevie we know to bigger and better things, Muff hung up his bass and went into production) they became almost pub rockers . . . . . . slightly unfair maybe but the spark was gone
Another valued bio from Kostas over at Urbanaspirines . . . . . . . .
This week in music history—1970: Traffic's 'John Barleycorn Must Die' was released. “Most of the Traffic stuff stands the test of time pretty well. All of those albums are like my children, so I really can’t pick a favourite, but in many ways, John Barleycorn is the core of what Traffic is, and it could be the most definitive album we did.” - SW
Albums bought when they came out (series) boy we loved this album . . . . . . . still have the original vinyl!
