Traffic - On the road

Style: Blues rock, Jazz rock.
Similar artists: Jefferson Airplane, Manfred's man, The Moody Blues.
Recording year: Island, 1973.

Though it ultimately must be considered an interim vehicle for singer/songwriter/keyboardist/guitarist Steve Winwood, Traffic was a successful group that followed its own individual course through the rock music scene of the late '60s and early '70s. Beginning in the psychedelic year of 1967 and influenced by the Beatles, the band early on turned out eclectic pop singles in its native Great Britain, though by the end of its first year of existence it had developed a pop/rock hybrid tied to its unusual instrumentation: At a time when electric guitars ruled rock, Traffic emphasized Winwood's organ and the reed instruments played by Chris Wood, especially flute. After Dave Mason, who had provided the band with an alternate folk-pop sound, departed for good, Traffic leaned toward extended songs that gave its players room to improvise in a jazz-like manner, even as the rhythms maintained a rock structure. The result was international success that ended only when Winwood finally decided he was ready to strike out on his own.

Reportedly released as an effort to undercut bootleggers following a world tour, Traffic: On the Road was the band's second live album in three years. The album chronicled a late edition of the band in which original members Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, and Chris Wood were augmented not only by percussionist Reebop Kwaku Baah, but also by a trio of session musicians from the famed Muscle Shoals studio, Roger Hawkins, David Hood, and Barry Beckett. The studio pros lent a tightness and proficiency to their characteristic free-form jams, and though they sometimes sounded like they couldn't wait to get the songs over with, the tunes went on and on, four clocking in at over ten minutes. That might have been okay if the choice of material had been more balanced across the band's career, but 1971's Welcome to the Canteen had treated earlier efforts, and the 1973 tour was promoting Shoot out at the Fantasy Factory, from which three of the six selections were drawn. Unfortunately, that album was not one of Traffic's best, and the live versions of its songs were no more impressive than the studio ones had been. Traffic: On the Road featured plenty of room for soloing by some good musicians, but it was the logical extreme of the band's forays into extended performance, with single tunes taking up entire sides on the original LPs. It's not surprising that, after this, Traffic shrunk in size and returned to shorter songs. [Though best known in its two-LP version, Traffic: On the Road was initially released in the U.S. as a single LP containing only four tracks.

Fields Of Haze... Underground for all.

Eric Clapton - Clapton (2010)

Genere:  Rock/Pop.
Styles: Blues-Rock, Adult Contemporary.
Similar Artist: Cream, Blind Faith, Ten Years After.
Record Year: Reprise Records, 2010.

Clapton is Eric Clapton’s first solo album in five years, but he hardly spent the back half of the 2000s in seclusion. After 2005’s Back Home, he went on a journey through the past, writing a 2007 autobiography -- also titled Clapton, although that’s the only connection they shared -- mending fences with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker for a brief Cream reunion, establishing a lasting connection with his old Blind Faith bandmate Steve Winwood, and recording a duet album with his ‘70s inspiration JJ Cale. This embrace of history isn’t directly heard on Clapton but it’s certainly felt, extending to how EC relies on old tunes -- blues and country, but also pop and R&B -- for the bulk of this 14-track album. EC is no stranger to covers and the sound of the album is familiar, but there’s no record quite like Clapton in his catalog. The closest may be Unplugged, which also ambles along with an unhurried shuffle, but this boasts a greater musical range, mixing up Fats Waller and Robert Wilkins with Hoagy Carmichael and Irving Berlin, finding room for guests appearances by Winwood, Allen Toussaint, Wynton Marsalis, Sheryl Crow, Derek Trucks and selected members from Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Yes, it is eclectic, even dipping into a bit of a soulful soft-rock groove on “Everything Will Be Alright,” but not self-consciously so. Clapton flows easily, the blues never hitting too hard, the New Orleans jazz never getting too woozy, the standards never too sleepy, the sounds subtly shifting but changing all the same. It’s leisurely in its performance and its length, perhaps running just a little too long, but it’s hard to complain because the slow ramble is so enjoyable. Eric Clapton has never sounded so relaxed on record, either as a singer -- he is supple and casually authoritative, a far cry from the tentative lead vocalist of his earliest solo records -- or a bandleader, sounding at peace with his past yet harboring no desire to recycle it, even if he’s reaching back far beyond the blues that initially sparked his interest in music. He’s simply laying back and enjoying what he’s playing, winding up with one of his simplest and best records.

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Fields Of Haze... Underground for all.