Tuesday, September 05, 2017

Steve Winwood's Greatest Hits Live


When I heard that Steve Winwood is bringing out a new album, Greatest Hits Live, I naturally made a mental note to buy it.

My only slight worry came from having seen him live (albeit without the whole of his usual band) at the Roundhouse in 2010:
If anything Winwood was too generous in allowing other members of the band their time in the spotlight, because the highlights of the concert came when he left his Hammond organ, picked up a guitar and went to the front. He blew us away with Dear Mr Fanstasy and Dirty City.
All that was a polite way of saying there was too much noodling.

But I need not have worried. There is a 90-minute interview with Steve Winwood on Classics du Jour which includes several tracks from the album and they sound magnificent.

Winwood is also more forthcoming than in many interviews. He confirms my theory that the key to making it in the Sixties was having a father who played in a jazz band, so you grew up with Black music, and singing in a church choir as a boy, so you got a good musical education.

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