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Steve Winwood


BFrank

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:tup :tup :tup

Some serious B-3 here. No doubt his best album in about 20 years. Not overproduced at all - just an organ trio with the occasional Karl Denson sax/flute thrown into the mix.

Winwood's Hammond is pushed up front all the way through this thing, which is a breath of fresh air.

Welcome back, Steve!

Edited by BFrank
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I, too, had some people tell me how much hammond he played on it. Up in the mix, ect.... Hmmm. I've actually heard some very, very early stuff of his where he's doing the full Jimmy Smith thing, bass and all. He's a great player, but I'm not really hip to his stuff. A little before my time. "Back In The High Life Again" is about it for me.... :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just got it today. I LIKE IT A LOT! It's an organ trio with percussion added and Stevie singing and playing organ bass. On some tracks there's sax and flute by Karl Denson. Not overproduced at all - good grooves and good playing. It's improvisational in nature and the playing is just what it's supposed to be. Whether it's jazz or not is up to you - it's improvised within a framework, it cooks, it's intelligent. It's GOOD MUSIC.

Great version of WHY CAN'T WE LIVE TOGETHER, which was an early 70s R&B hit by Timmy Thomas. If I remember that record correctly it was just organ and drum machine (rhythm ace).

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This is a pretty cool cd! So much better than those Arc of A Diver thangs he was putting out. . . . .

I've always liked the organ sounds he comes up with. And dig that he is doing a Sade tune.

Edited by jazzbo
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I had high hopes for this, but was very disappointed when I previewed it in the record store. I ended up not buying it.

The tunes are just BORING. Monotonous vamps. I was hoping for some harmonic sophistication and interesting songwriting because SW certainly has it in him (somewhere). None on there as far as I could tell (I listened to maybe a minute of each track). I guess some people go for "grooves" but I need quite a bit more otherwise a "groove" is just another word for a "rut."

Arc of a Diver is actually quite a good album (While You See A Chance is a gem in terms of the qualities I mentioned above), Talking Back to the Night is not bad too - both were one-man operations. The demo-like quality works well, in my opinion. It's the ones after those two that are real disasters: formulaic, way overproduced, and just pop fluff in terms of the lyrics and music. BTW, some people aren't aware of his first solo record, Steve Winwood, from 1977 - it never made much impact. Not the strongest, but with some worthwhile things. Better than anything since Talking Back, at least.

The Keyboard article is interesting - the new album was recorded live - vocals, organ, pedals, the whole deal. Not many pop things like that. But so much is very simplistic, so maybe it's not all that impressive.

Mike

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Guest ariceffron

oh...i dont know how i could have forgetten....but just in case any of you are wondering, Stevie Winwood is completely down with the babyface. just so you know

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Mike - Sorry you didn't like it. Maybe it needs to be played straight through.....at least once, to get the full effect. It's just a loose enjoyable album, IMO.

I thought I should have seen him this past Sunday at the Fillmore, but didn't make it. It was probably a lot of fun.

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