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I first bought this around 1970; good but later Traffic is much better like "Low Spark" & "Welcome to the Canteen".those are a must have
Tracks 7 & 8 were recorded only be 2 people - Winwood played everything except for drums. It is an older painting provided by the English Folk Dance & Song Society; it depicts a faggot of barley().Whom to recommend this music: to anyone who likes the progressive rock music with lots of improvisation of the turn of 1960's and 1970's. - keyb, saxs, fl, perc; J. C. If you like Clapton, Blind Faith etc., and the British folk, you won't be dissapointed. - keyb, g, bg, perc, voc; C. Track 2 ("Freedom Rider") begins with a sax motif (which might have been an inspiration for the sax jingle of the TV series on Hercule Poirot :-). W.
After another line-up of Traffic split in 1969, Steve Winwood played with the Blind Faith. Probably no guitars are employed in these 2 compositions (tracks 2 & 3). A lovely flute solo is featured as well. It features a catchy legato guitar figure and later, this composition transforms into folk-rock'n'blues keyboard improvisations, with perfect, time-to-time even exalted Winwood's singing (of course, Winwood is no Freddie Mercury, but his voice is very functional and suitable for this kind of music). - ds) was in a wonderful shape that year. The 6 original tracks are a tremendous blend of various musical styles and influences, yet holding perfectly together on one album. After that, early in 1970, he planned to record a solo album. Yet, seeking musical partners tuned in the same way as himself, was a bit uneasy.
The cover is the original - very decent. In contrast, one of the additional tracks that were included into this remastered reissue (track 4 - "I Just Want You to Know"), is a short tune based on vocal harmonies and then it features a lovely guitar solo. In track 3 ("Empty Pages"), a melodic folk-like tune, Winwood's vocal (commonly somewhat strangled) sounds, especially in the refrain, almost like Phil Collins. It is said to be about "the effort of people to give up the alcohol distilled from barley." Track 7 ("Every Mothers Son") has appeared on some compilations of progressive rock of the time. The instrumental opener ("Glad") starts off with a rhythmic piano and woodwind riff, which might be, by current categorization, assigned even to funky jazz-rock.
The 2 bonus tracks are very pleasing (the total time of the extended issue is no more than 39:31 min), and depite that in general, I quite dislike spreading the added material in between the original one, on this album, it is quite feasible (the extra material being track 4 and the last track 8): in case you don't have the original recording in your ears, you would not recognize the E.T." among the old material. This record is superb, 5 stars. The sound of this remaster is quite nice; to me, only the additional track 4 sounds somehow flatter. That's why he gratefully accepted co-operation of his old Traffic friends, Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi, and after all the album, John Barleycorn Must Die, was issued under the Traffic heading.The trio (S. Track 6 is the outstanding title composition - an English folk ballad, "John Barleycorn Must Die." As noted on the cover, the first record of this song appeared in 1465 in the age of James 1st.
However, the composition spreads into sax and then keybord improvisations, the piano in the end sounding nearly like a classical one, almost impressionistic style. W. The majority of tracks (4-7 min each) allows space for solo improvisations.
Not only is this my favourite traffic recording, its one of my favourite recordings of all time.I could actually do without the bonus tracks.
He teamed up some other well-respected geniuses and produced much fine, and some mediocre, material. John Barleycorn, the much praised title track, sounded pretentious and lame to me then; today, with another 40 years of listening to British folk music under my belt, it sounds worse. Steve Winwood was a talented musician and songwriter who created some of the most memorable rock of his era. While Winwood could certainly play an astoundingly good piano, he had a tendency to noodle along without going anywhere. Back in the 70s, when 20 year old musicians were being hailed as geniuses every week, many of those geniuses let the accolades go to their head.
Either it's a good LP or it ain't. That means something.Forget the history lessons and who did what when stuff. There is a lot of boredom on side 2. That is a good song.As I publish this, I note that of 42 reviews, there are only 4 and 5 star reviews. I had not heard side 2 in a long time. So, my opinion is that this CD, well remastered, has 3 incredibly fine songs on it, 2 toothless "extra tracks" to make it selllable, and 3 lesser songs on it that I will gladly live without.I had not heard those opening riffs to Glad in many years, but the same smile I felt back then reappeared instantly. 3 great songs, well blended in a delightful sequence, made it one of my favorites. After all, even Dave Marsh's opinions are just that, opinions.
(How could they not--treated as royalty, they did what royalty has often done, believe they were better than others and everything they produced was remarkable, including their excrement). This kind of music has been performed by a number of staggeringly talented musicians, and I'd rather hear any of them do it.When I write these, I try to imagine what you, the reader, might be looking for. It is. This CD is full of both.When I played this LP, side 1 was the only side I listened to. Well, now I remember why.
Their muse pulled them in many directions: Rock, folk, jazz, R&B and various subgenres. As for the individual songs -- I can't think of a better suite than the three songs that made up the original Side 1 of this disk: "Glad, "Freedom Rider" and "Empty Pages." Then you've got the wondrous title song, which was the centerpiece of side 2. The compositions on "John Barleycorn." as well as on subsequent classics like "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" are highly structured. The only drawback I find to "John Barleycorn." is a wish they had gone further. In the telling, Traffic was this great band with two front-men, Steve Winwood and Dave Mason, which fell apart over egos and ambition and then reformed, without Mason, after Winwood's Blind Faith excursion crashed and burned.
Clearly, this group was awaiting an African drummer -- you can almost hear it on some of the tracks. Both were multi-instrumentalists, so for some songs that means Winwood soloing on organ, guitar and piano, and Wood on flute and saxophone. Of course, that drummer arrived in time for the next Traffic album, "Welcome to the Canteen," and is one of the factors in making the next three Traffic albums the unheralded classics that they are. "Stranger to Himself" is an R&B style tune, in the mode of the previous incarnation's great final single, "Shanghai Noodle Factory/Medicated Goo." It's just a wonderful slab of music that you'll play a long time before getting tired of it. What Capaldi provides here and would blossom later into a signature quality was an incredible suppleness of rhythm. Whatever the song needed.
In reality, the Winwood-Mason group was really a different band, a fine band, but far less ambitious and innovative than the band that was born on "John Barleycorn Must Die." Losing Dave Mason didn't deplete Traffic; it freed the band from the strictures of its previous incarnation as a generator of hit singles and allowed the fruitful collaboration among Winwood, Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi to reach its full apogee. Or some combination thereof. Rhythmic adventurousness was Traffic's foundation beginning with this album. "John Barleycorn" doesn't sound anything like the Traffic that did songs like "Feelin' Alright" or "Heaven is in Your Mind." Nor is this version of Traffic -- which continued through the remainder of its career -- a "jam band" in the sense that those words now signify. He could lay down a fat groove or a solid 4/4, or he could swing lightly, or he could click away in an ethereal mist. And you couldn't pin them down.
Built into that structure were opportunities to perform solos. Both were virtuosos whose solos had much more to say, musically, than 95 percent of rock instrumentalists.
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