Winwood mixes up the world

7:00am Saturday 10th May 2008

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MUSIC legend Steve Winwood is back with a new album, Nine Lives, out this week - his first solo album since 1994. The former Traffic and Blind Faith member explains what he's been doing in the meantime and looks back on his hugely successful career.

By Andy Welch

CONSIDERING the number of bands Steve Winwood's been a member of, and the various different musical genres he's tried, Nine Lives is the perfect name for his new record.

The album, his first since 2003's About Time, sees the 60-year-old, originally from Handsworth in Birmingham, continue his foray into World music.

Winwood first displayed his prodigal talent in 1966 when, aged just 17, he hit the top of the UK singles chart as lead singer of The Spencer Davis Group with the ubiquitous Keep On Running.

More hits followed for the band, such as Gimme Some Lovin' and Somebody Help Me, and the beat combo are now regarded as one of the greatest exponents of the British Invasion sound.

Winwood's stay in the band was shortlived, however, and he soon moved on to form Traffic, who fused art-rock, pastoral folk and jazz. Their seminal 1970 album John Barleycorn Must Die remains one of the best British albums of all time and is regularly cited as a huge influence on artists such as Paul Weller and Billy Bragg.

"They say musicians are different to music lovers and I have to agree with that," he states, before explaining where he draws his own influences from. "I don't listen to things for fun really. I listen to things to see what I can get from it.

"Since the early days of Traffic, I've always made a conscious effort to combine different elements of folk, jazz, rock and what we call World Music now. Where does other stuff come from? Ethnic music, classical, church music.

"I'm still doing the same thing and on Nine Lives I think even more has been added to the pot. There's a big Brazilian element, for example."

That South American feel is more than likely down to the input of Jose Neto, one of Winwood's long-time collaborators, and a native of Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo.

"Jose's big influences when he was growing up were Hendrix and Zeppelin, so that 60s rock goes really well with his Brazilian heritage."

Nine Lives' international feel is bolstered by the playing styles of Trinidadian percussionist Richard Bailey, and Karl Vanden Bossche, a Londoner of Ghanaian descent, who bring flavours of the Caribbean and West Africa to the record, Winwood's ninth solo offering since 1977. "I'm not exactly prolific," he says, laughing.

The writing process for Nine Lives, which was recorded in his own studio, about a mile from his Gloucestershire home, was slightly unconventional.

Rather than write the songs before starting the recording process, the band convened and just jammed - but made sure every note was recorded and logged for future reference.

"All the songs are based on and inspired by things the band had already played," he says. "With my last album About Time, I put the band together and it was the first time I'd had that format. Back then, we hadn't really played live much, either, so I just had to imagine what we would sound like playing live and try to write suitable things.

"This time around was different. There's a track called Hungry Man, which has this township kind of South African guitar on it. It came from something I had on a recording of Jose playing," he explains.

"I actually tried to learn what he'd played, so I did and played it back to him, but he couldn't remember ever playing it!"

Another Nine Lives song, Dirty Town, features guitar supremo Eric Clapton.

"I worked on the album for the best part of a year, on and off, and in a way it's not normal for me to bring people in like that," he says of Clapton's involvement. "It's based around what the band does but it just occurred to me when writing that song that Eric would be perfect for the guitar solo.

"I offered to send him the song over first to hear it but he didn't want to. I can understand that. He just wanted to react to it and that's how I work too. Eric came in and did three or four takes and that was it."

Of course, this isn't the first time the two 60s musical pioneers have worked together.

In 1968, after Clapton had disbanded Cream and Winwood left Traffic for the first time (they reformed in 1970, only to break up four years later, with a partial reunion taking place in 1994), the pair formed Blind Faith with fellow ex-Cream member Ginger Baker and Rick Grech of prog-rockers Family.

Blind Faith only recorded one self-titled album, which was released in 1969, but it remains a classic.

"Eric's changed since those days," offers Winwood. "He's always been a great guitarist but he's become a great singer and a great bandleader too. When we were in Blind Faith, all he wanted to do was play the guitar, meaning I was left to lead the band.

"I wish we had stayed together longer but I think it was inevitable we split up," he continues, referring to Blind Faith's collapse only months after the release of their debut LP.

"When Eric and I got together with the idea of forming Blind Faith, we knew what we wanted to do. The music was more delicate than some of the stuff Eric had been playing with Cream. It had some sensitivity to it, which we wanted to continue with.

"I think we managed to capture that vision on the record but the problems came when we played live. There were a lot pressures and a lot of financial people came out of the woodwork and had interests in the band going a certain way, so they put us in big arenas.

"Now, if we were to play Can't Find My Way Home live, it would go down very well. It's become kind of a rock anthem, but in those days nobody knew it. People had heard the album but they wanted heavier rock. They didn't want tinkling acoustic guitars."

Winwood's musical journey carried on into the 80s, when he "went pop" and tasted huge success with singles such as Higher Love and Valerie.

"I don't have a favourite era of my music," he says, "although I am proud of a lot of it.

"I'm 60 now, so I should be thinking about doing what I want to do and I'm very lucky that I can."

Name: Stephen Laurence Winwood

Age: 60

Significant other: He is married to Eugenia. They have four children.

Career high: Winning two Grammy awards in 1986 for single Higher Love, which also hit No 1 in the US charts.

Career low: Too few to mention.

Famous for: His keyboard skills.

Words of wisdom: "I have plenty to keep me busy away from music. I have a small farm and I've got some conservation projects going on - I'm planting trees and growing bio-diesel. Actually, we're hoping to have a carbon neutral studio very soon."