Traffic Babylon

Paul Rees tells the story of Steve Winwood's second band, with more of an emphasis on its darker side than you normally see:

With the extravagant Capaldi cheerleading, and fragile, mystical Wood bringing with him a traditional English folk tune called John Barleycorn – which he’d heard on Frost And Fire, a 1965 album by Hull folkies The Watersons – the stage was set for Traffic to at last become the band Winwood had wanted all along: one capable of harnessing a dizzying array of musical styles and then make them over into a fresh, original form that ebbed, flowed and soared. 

The John Barleycorn Must Die album was the first, giant step along that path. From there they conjured three more records that marked them out as prodigious explorers and rare virtuosos. Yet it also extracted a heavy price from the three principals – it could be said that not one of them was ever the same again.