STEVE WINWOOD: DON'T CALL HIM STEVIE!

STEVE WINWOOD: DON'T CALL HIM STEVIE!

by Penny Valentine

When Steve Winwood was 15 years old he was the child prodigy/focal point of the Spencer Davis Group. Singing with a soul voice experienced beyond its years and playing keyboard and guitar with absolute assurance, his talents were never questioned. Propelled to stardom in a bewildering welter of superlatives, he suffered the problems that are inherent in such a meteoric youthful rise. Shy, retiring, intensely involved in his music; Winwood's introverted persona gave rise to a series of projected images that conspired to create a portrait of the artist as a fragile victim of rock's uglier side.

You trod on glass to interview him, careful always to wait as he hovered mid-sentence, not rushing to fill in the gaps that occurred for fear of silencing him completely.

Thirteen years later such images remain. But now he denies that he played the role of victim, insists that he is a survivor, and surely it's true that because of—and despite—the Spencer Davis Group, Blind Faith and Traffic, Winwood has emerged with an assurance and determination to go his own way, stronger than one ever supposed, resisting pressures that would have cracked lesser musicians.

Why after three years is he back in the rock mainstream of interviews and photo sessions? He laughed: "No, Chris Blackwell didn't come and say 'Look, you can do it.' I went to him and said 'Look, I can do it.' "

"What killed Traffic was... for the group to always be making some kind of turnover. We couldn't sit back and see what we were doing."

And the endless interviews? "I'm afraid I'm much more basic than that. I've made an album and I want as many people to hear it as possible, so if all this helps, that's fine—count me in. I can't do live work at the moment so this is the only way to reach people."

Even the studio he's building at his country cottage isn't for seclusion. "Oh, no—it doesn't make life easier but," he smiled, "it certainly makes it cheaper. Studio time is really expensive these days."

And he is puzzled still that such an image has built up about him, although: "It would be easy to go mad if you really thought of all of this—" a quick wave round the Island Records office, "as a syndrome. I don't. I can't..."

He is most surprised at being thought of as a difficult interviewee: "Maybe.. Silence, then: "Maybe it's because of the things people have written...'The reluctant star' was the last; it does affect you."

What remains then? The hesitant answers to questions, the long pauses, the sudden amusement; the gentleness of his manner and the still soft Midland burr to his speaking voice. Certainly too, the talent. Steve Winwood is an insidious album with the exultant melancholia of voice and song that has remained his private property.

"I didn't really set out to create an overall sound on the album. I picked songs that I thought were strong and worked on them really...individually. 1 just tried to bring out as much from each of the songs as I could, having in the first place thought they were the best I could write."

Traffic finally broke up three years ago after numerous well-documented changes in line-up and attitude. Winwood appeared to lose himself in other people's projects—first with West African Remi Kebaka on an album that was never released, then with Japanese percussionist Stomu Yamashata on the complex Go album and tour. It was only when Go finished last summer that Winwood —who had originally planned a solo venture seven years ago with Mad Shadows—wrote the new album. Alone at last, he retired to Chipping Norton Studios, and four weeks later emerged with one track, "Vacant Chair "

"I didn't have any psychological problems...no. In fact it was very easy after having worked with Stomu." He smiled. "Very easy. After those first four weeks I could have been in a terrible state, but I don't think it would have helped the album, the record company, anybody."

There is this constant denial of internal and external pressures: "Well it might sound very irresponsible, I don't know," he shrugged. "Not worrying— but how can you do a thing naturally if you worry? I just don't think about it."

The necessity to make Steve Winwood came, he said, soon after Traffic split up: "There was a short while when I was doing, er, not very much. Then I started with Remi only because I wanted to, not for the discography of doing this and that, no—but because I enjoyed working with him."

Somehow, work on the Kebaka project tailed off, and the tracks were never completed.

"I went through a stage of wanting to use them on this album but they really did need more work done on them and by that time I was committed to Stomu's project..." For the same reasons—working with unconventional musicians who had new ideas to push.

"No, it certainly wasn't an easy time with Stomu. It was very hard work. But it was worth it—watching all those people working, listening to what they had to say, fascinating! I think that album, although it didn't quite come off, was nearly brilliant."

Steve Winwood has never been a flamboyant musician; his brilliance still lies in more than just his extraordinary talent as keyboards man and guitarist, weaving his music into deceptively simple patterns. He has kept a direct emotional contact from the time of Spencer Davis through everything— even the most shambolic Traffic concerts. The responsibility being his own on Steve Winwood has re-emphasized that ability. Looking back on the Spencer Davis days, he sees that as the group's overriding attraction: "It came out of...seemingly nowhere, that band. It had some kind of energy and it was very emotional. Traffic, on the other hand...Traffic was a very contrived group, definitely. Oh yes, pseudo-intellectual. We already had an idea when we formed, we knew exactly what we wanted to do."

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For over seven years, Traffic was mythologized by critics and audiences. It survived crippling internal changes— sometimes working as a trio with Dave Mason skipping in and out of the ranks, sometimes growing into an eight-piece. In and out of the public eye—the band disappeared on occasion into their country retreat for months—Winwood's peritonitis forced them off the road again in 1972. Finally, in 1975, the group disbanded for 'good. What did its demise mean to Winwood?

"It was...necessary. Really, all the members of the group had developed their own ideas and how they thought the group should progress and, of course, if that differs anywhere in the group, you're going to get compromises. If I'd stayed with Traffic, I'd never have been able to work with Remi or Stomu because—well obviously it's financial—you can't just go off and do other things when you should be recording or touring."

Did he feel that sense of restriction?

He nodded emphatically: "Y6s... and all the time people were telling me what Traffic meant to them—all the time we were getting this double feedback and then you have to...well, it means that maybe you unconsciously become what they say you are. Yes, all kinds of complications came up and contributed to that eventual breakup.

"Plus...well, I shouldn't say the touring, because that's the only way the group survived. But I think what killed Traffic was the necessity by the business for the group to always be making some kind of turnover. We couldn't sit back and see what we were doing."

When he was with Spencer Davis, Winwood already realized that he was being propelled into situations and responsibilties he was too young to handle. When Traffic formed, Steve Winwood was 19.

"It was a similar situation except that with Spence I never really thought about what I was doing, whereas with Traffic I was too self-conscious possibly. Although at the start some of the pressures were off. I remember," he laughed, "being very pissed off at the time because the big thing was still Spencer Davis Group and Traffic was then slightly experimental, slightly eccentric; sometimes there, sometimes not. And people would say 'Well, Traffic's okay but oh, the Spencer Davis Group was really great.' Yet now I think that helped me, it cushioned me against all the praise I'd had before."

Apart from the Kebaka and Yamashata albums, Winwood says he spent most of the three years writing, listening to Radio Caroline, and not buying any records.

"When I made the album I wouldn't listen to anything. I was like writers who didn't want to read other people's books because they felt intimidated by the amount of literary work that came out—well, these days records are almost catching up."

He also re-established his long-standing friendship with Jim Capaldi. Capaldi is the one musician across the years that Winwood has stayed close to.

"Obviously we must have been close, having worked together for so long, and our writing partnership required a special understanding. And...it's very difficult to forget a relationship with a person, be it musical or private. Yes, you're right, Jim is the only person from all the bands I've remained so close to. When it came to the album—I had some rough songs and I asked Jirn to come in and help. I didn't feel the songs I'd written on my own were as strong as the ones Jim and I write fogether. So only "Midland Maniac" got on, and even now there are times I hate it! I think the thing with him and I... somehow, as writers, you sit down together with nothing and get up— miraculously—with something. I think that's...remarkable, you know."

By the time he was ready to go into the studios, he had gathered the cream of musicians from Britain, America, Africa and Jamaica—including exTraffic conga man Reebop Kwaku Baah and Bob Marley guitarist Junior Marvin. For his entire life as a professional musician Winwood has stayed contracted to Island Records' Chris Blackwell who, at the end of the Spencer Davis Group, put Steve's brother Muff in his London office and Spencer into Los Angeles—Blackwell worked with him on the album, using the old Island studios at Basing Street for most of the tracks. Winwood admits that his own strong ideas and self-criticism resulted in "quite a few deadlocks" with Blackwell during production.

"I could have probably not gone back to recording, played my music in some village hall or played organ in a church—but really what I want is that my music be heard by as many people as possible. That's still important to me. And the record company didn't pressure me and why should they? Who gains from that?"

After living in industrial cities, first Birmingham and then London, Winwood is now a confirmed country dweller, a move initiated when Traffic went to Berkshire, unconsciously setting the pattern for a whole new stream of musicians working outside the urban complex. ("Funny that—it only happened because we couldn't find anywhere in London to rehearse without the neighbors complaining—not a 'Let's go organic' thing at all. It was because, for the grand total of 50 pounds a year, we could have the cottage.")

The quality of his life still concerns Winwood and he is in the throes of planning an American tour for next year.

"I'm involved in that administration because most agents, when you say 'No', think you'll forget and then present you with a date sheet that's just crazy, crazy."

He says he's looking forward to getting back onstage, even though people see him as a very retiring live artist.

"Well," he smiled to himself, "the extrovert-ness was beaten out of me at a very early age you know. I never wanted to be a great star. I wanted only to go on stage and be a great musician. "