From the first day I brought it home and played it, I was hooked. The condition of the rekkid was poor, you can listen to it, but it’s definitely seen better days. Like all vinyl collectors, this was a crate digging discovery starting with Welcome to the Canteen, 1971 a live album recorded in London. This band is a recent discovery for me, and I’ve now added 2 of their studio albums to my collection, with a live album as the 3 rd. You can argue that the short-lived life of Traffic is perhaps why they’re not as well-known as their fellow English counterparts of the era, but the artistic burst of energy that went into their albums is not to be underestimated. Steve Winwood, the most famous member of Traffic was in another band at the time, the Spencer Davis Group and it was after leaving that Traffic was born. As often the case, the guys met at a Birmingham club where they used to jam on weekends, The Elbow Room. Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason formed Traffic in 1967, the same year as Pink Floyd as it happens. It’s easy to see how they filled the gap in British music when people were yearning for something less sanitized than The Beatles and The Beach Boys. Traffic, formed in England in the late 1960’s came on to the music scene with their flavour of psychedelic rock. After Love had gone their separate ways, Jimi and Arthur recorded together again, and they were talking about putting together a supergroup with Stevie Winwood as the vocalist, Buddy Miles on drums, and some other players, but it never got any further because Jimi passed away.I wasn’t even born when this band had broken up for the second time in 1974. Jimi was an acquaintance of mine, but he was a friend of Arthur’s. Pete Townshend Vs Jimi Hendrix: The Who Backstage At Monterey He smiled and said, ‘No, man, I made a trip to the woodshed!’ Meaning that he had just practised and practised. I said, Damn, what happened? Did you make a trip to the crossroads? I was kind of playing with him. When he was on break, Arthur and I went to the dressing room, and we chatted.
#STEVE WINWOOD BAND TRAFFIC FULL#
Now he’s in full hippy regalia, with the fringed jacket and the boots, and he’s on-stage using this Cry Baby wah-wah pedal, which I’d tried and couldn’t figure out, and he was doing feedback, distortion, stuff guitarists just didn’t do. A few nights later, we went to the Whisky A Go Go to check him out, and Arthur goes, “Man, that’s the dude that played with us!”īefore, he wore cardigans and skinny ties, with the processed hair. A couple of years later, in San Francisco, a friend told us about this incredible guitar player called Jimi Hendrix, and we obviously didn’t put it together it was the same guy. Jimi really hit it off with Arthur, and Arthur got him to play on an R&B single he cut with Rosa Lee Brooks, called My Diary.
READ: Jimi Hendrix's Best Albums Ranked ! We weren’t making a lot of money, going from club to club, and rather than sending his clothes to the cleaners, Jimi would spray them with Right Guard – you’d know he was coming from 20 feet away because he reeked of the stuff. He was a quiet, introspective person, and I would’ve called him a so-so guitar player, a journeyman. A little later, Billy Preston, Little Richard and I went to a recording session, which was the first time I really talked to him. At that time, he was just Jimmy James, playing with the Isley Brothers, and he’d come down to audition with the O’Jays. Johnny Echols: “I first met Jimi in 1964 at the California Club, where I was in the house band. There’s nothing to hide…” Read MOJO’s interview with Johnny Echols in full! In this extract from our exclusive interview with Echols, he reveals how prior to Hendrix’s death in 1970, Jimi and Arthur Lee were hatching plans to form their own supergroup with Traffic’s Stevie Winwood…
Back then Hendrix was “a quiet introspective… so-so guitar player”. Love guitarist Johnny Echols had known Jimi Hendrix since the early 60s.
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