Not as well known as he might have been…but his influence will live on forever.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4216603.stm
Slan,
D.
Traffic was together till 1979? I had no idea.
Jim Capaldi was way cool, and stomach cancer is no way to go. Thanks for letting us know, D.
may he rest in peace
This is indeed sad news. I remember reading, fairly recently, that Capaldi was on the road in the US, playing to small but enthusiastic audiences. He was enjoying music-making every bit as much as when he was with a top group.
Why aren’t traffic better known? Did they miss out on hits in the States? They were certainly very well-known in my circles in Australia and in Britain.
They really didn’t have any hits here. A few of their songs are widely known here: Low spark of high-heeled boys and Mr Fantasy are played quite a bit on prog-rock stations. Those two albums plus John Barleycorn sold pretty well here, and Shootout at the Fantasy Factory sold somewhat. I think it’s kind of a sad commentary on the taste of the US market that Steve Winwood became much more successful doing his pop in the 80’s than he’d been with Traffic, Blind Faith, possibly even Spencer Davis.
I heard a show on Blind Faith a few years ago. They had an extremely successful tour in the UK, but bombed in the US. The music on their tour consisted mostly of songs that Winwood sung, because he was the star in the UK, following success with Spencer Davis and Traffic. They didn’t understand (I’m not sure why) that Clapton, on the heels of Cream’s success, was the star in the US. So the US audiences were really going to see a Clapton show and they got a Winwood show, at least toward the beginning; by later in the tour, when they’d tilted things a little more toward Clapton, it was too late to recover.
Thanks Chas. That makes sense. I think Winwood had more commercial success everywhere in the 80s but I really wouldn’t know; I abondoned him early on in that phase as did everyone else I know.
It simply would never have occurred to anyone in Britain (or Australia) that you would build a show around Clapton rather than Winwood back then. Winwood was a true superstar, a very fine multi-instrumentalist as well as one of a handful of truly great white soul singers. It’s hard to imagine the awe in which he was held by musicians and fans back then. Nobody who knew about Clapton would not have known about Winwood (in Britain or Australia.) In both places, the Spencer Davis hits would have been much bigger than any hit Cream had.
I also think that, in the 60s, people in Britain and Australia simply didn’t realise that Americans didn’t track the progress of English bands in England. I mean, we simply had no idea back then that America was a separate market with its own rules of entry. We thought that because British artists were having hits in America that Americans had started tuning in to developments on the charts and club scene in England.
Bad times for rock drummers. Spencer Dryden formerly of Jefferson Airplane died a couple of weeks ago too. A great drummer from my alltime favorite band.
Cancer Sucks 
RIP
LB
Yes, it does. Having lost a dear friend to it last May, and having watched numerous friends lose dear ones to it this past year, I whole-heartedly agree with you.
May his life be celebrated every time his music is played!
~ad
Wombat, I wonder if you might subscribe to this theory. Steve Winwood is, as you pointed out, an unbelievable musician, consummate on keyboards, guitar, bass, etc. But Clapton is universally worshipped by guitar players, also blues fans. This has been the case to some extent since the days of the Yardbirds. I wonder if there are more guitarists in the US – as a fraction of the population or relative to people who might appreciate multi-instrumentalists. I know (unless I’ve lost my mind) you’re a guitarist and blues fan – is Clapton held in such reverence there?
It also brings to mind the year, maybe 1984, that Peter Gabriel’s So and Phil Collins’s No jacket required came out. So got a lot of awards in the UK and No Jacket in the US. Two former Genesis (Collins probably wasn’t former at that point) members who took different paths, and the pure pop guy was the one the US embraced.
As an aside, I’m listening as I type to the Derek and the Dominoes album. Soon after Blind Faith, Clapton teamed up with Duane Allman, an American guitar wizard, I dunno if it was 'cause of the Blind Faith failure in the US. I think it may be the perfect album. (Not literally, of course, but, my God, it’s good, top to bottom.)
Yeah, I lost a friend who was 34. The daughter of a very close friend has been diagnosed with leukemia; she’s 32. She came through the first round of treatment really well – 40% of patients drop out before the end of the first month of treatment. Then she had two mild strokes and found out that the cancer cells aren’t gone, so she’ll have to have a bone-marrow transplant. This is someone who doesn’t deserve this shit – I’m alternately saddened and angered by it.
Thanks for lettin’ me vent.
I had the luck of working with Jim and Steve on a few occasions and will remember them always.
Jim was great guy and certainly lived life to the full,I think he never left the 60s.
I’ll alway remember one night after a gig in Bourton,we were doing a charity gig with Steve,Ruby Turner,Jess Roden and many others.We all went back to Steves annex where we were all staying.The vibe was still up from the gig and Jim grabbed a guitar and just sat and sang his own songs for hours and we all joined in on whatever instruments were to hand.It was brilliant,we all had a few beers and tunes and a spledid night/morning was had by all.
I must just add that his songwriting skill were never really recognised as he was always overshaddowed by his contemperaries.
A man of great warmth,talent and passion who brought joy to thousands.
We all miss mate.
Phil.
Yep, you’re right about me. Guitar is still my number one instrument and I still play blues a lot.
I think Clapton is universally respected but perhaps not worshipped. He’s done a lot of stuff I really like but not much that blows me away. For guitar virtuosity, I think his best work was the early Bluesbreakers album and a 90s album of blues covers whose name escapes me. I enjoyed Cream but I think that his live workouts with them (Crossroads excepted, which is brilliant) are perhaps the worst music he ever committed to record. Life is too short for 20 minute one-chord jams on a single blues scale. (I also preferred Bruce and Baker when they were with the Graham Bond Organization, the first genuine jazz-rock fusion band and perhaps the most underrated group of the 60s.)
Cream broke up because Clapton came to realise the truth of what I just said. In his case, listening to the Band’s first album did the trick. Robbie Robertson was saying more in two well-crafted bars than Clapton was in a whole solo. Clapton then entered a period of self-consciously pursuing tightness and restraint which started with Blind Faith and proceeded through the Bonnie and Delaney period and for several years afterwards. IMO, he grew up as a musician in that period, which isn’t to say that his mature music is always as interesting as his best immature music.
Winwood was one of the better R&B guitarists when playing in Spencer Davis but really abandoned blues playing thereafter. He could still play a well-crafted solo (Mr. Fantasy) but never went in for power-trio style excess. To my ears, he always had the group sound principally in mind, even when he dominated proceedings as he often did. Traffic could rock out but mostly they went for subtle and rich textures and group balance almost to the point where I wished Winwood would push his ego a bit more.
I think that there might have been several reasons for Blind Faith’s failure. The very restraint that Clapton wanted was probably not what his fans wanted or expected. If he felt forced to play the guitar hero, that would have soured the experience for him. I think that, having pretty much invented the power trio, people expected that from Clapton at precisely the point at which he’d decided he no longer wanted to deliver. I don’t think it’s principally the fact that the US is full of guitarists so much as the fact that the US, and many people elsewhere, decided they liked power trios and eventually heavy metal. Bands like Mountain and Led Zep stepped into the vacuum and a whole scene developed from there which continues to this day. It’s really the Yardbirds’ legacy.
Well this one is easy. ‘So’ is one of my favourite rock albums from the 80s; I’m not aware of ever having heard the Collins album.
That’s certainly a good one. It has the passion whilst still being song- and group-sound based. I think we might have Pattie Boyd to thank for the passion.
BTW, and not as an afterthought, I’m really sorry to hear that friends of yours are suffering from cancer. I very much hope that you get good news on this front.
" But Clapton is universally worshipped by guitar players, also blues fans."
This is one guy I feel is incredibly overrated, and always has been, but then I am crazy. I mean honestly, when I listen to his stuff, old, new, whatever, I’m just so unimpressed - Hendrix, SRV, Albert King, and on and on…I just don’t hear why Clapton deserves to be up there with those guys.
“It also brings to mind the year, maybe 1984, that Peter Gabriel’s So and Phil Collins’s No jacket required came out. So got a lot of awards in the UK and No Jacket in the US. Two former Genesis (Collins probably wasn’t former at that point) members who took different paths, and the pure pop guy was the one the US embraced.”
Gabriel really is talented on so many levels, one of most talented guys out there really. “So” was a fantastic recording, not nearly as “Pop” as Collins stuff, at least not by design.
Collins…he really is a fantastic drummer, and Genesis was a great, groundbreaking band, but as a solo artist…wow, he’s so much the polar opposite of Gabriel, it’s not even funny.
Loren
You may be crazy, Loren, but I’m given to exaggeration, plus I have a far from statistical sample on which my “universally worshipped” comment was based. 
As always, very interesting reading, Wombat.
It depends on whether you’re rating musicians for blues feel or for flashy technique who you’d put at the top I think. Whichever, both for feel and flash, the original Bluesbreakers album was very impressive and I think, as innovative blues guitar, it’s the equal of anyone you mention. Unfortunately, he never equalled that performance in later years. At the time it blew away other (white) bluesmen, notably Mike Bloomfield. More traditional bluesmen like Howling Wolf thought all that overamplified music was DS.
Hendrix is, IMO, the greatest rock guitarist there has been but, since he played straight blues so rarely, I don’t think of him as a blues guitarist. For his general ability to get around the guitar and play soulfully I really can’t think of anyone who comes close. When he came onto the scene he blew away everybody, notably Eric Clapton.
When giving a list of favourite blues guitarists, non-slide and in the modern amplified idiom, I wouldn’t name anyone mentioned so far. I actually think the music suffers—mainly rhythmically—when you abandon your Bassman or Twin Reverb amp and move to a stack. (If you are playing in a stadium, mike a small amp through the PA.) Trying to take into account the quality of the best work while giving some marks for conisistency, my favourites would be (in no particualr order): B.B. King, Freddy King, Otis Rush, Pete ‘Guitar’ Lewis, T-Bone Walker, Hubert Sumlin. Honourable mentions to Ike Turner, Fenton Robinson, Willie Johnson and Micky Baker.
BTW, I’ve heard Albert King live and liked him but his playing was bit too repetitive and (to my ears) unsubtle to mix it with the best. Same goes for Albert Collins. No big deal though; it’s a fine distinction. I’d listen to either of them any day.
Flash isn’t what I’m getting at.
To me, Mayall (and the band he put together) elevated Clapton’s playing - he had a ton to work with, play off of, and be inspired by in that situation, the stimulus and (rhythmic/harmonic) support was there to raise Clapton above his usual level, which is why he never achieved the same level of playing again. IMO.
Bloomfield is another one people rave about, but leaves me flat. Yeah, I get how he was skilled, and different, but his blues playing, chromatica and all, doesn’t speak to me.
To say Clapton was/is far ahead of Vaughn…well, I guess we’re never gonna see eye to eye on these issues Wombat, because to me, SRV was the far superior bluesman, any way you slice it: feeling, mastery of the instrument, vocals, you name it. Clapton’s voice and playing both sound so…straight (I was tempted to say “white”, but that’s not quite accurate).
Finally, to be one of the true greats (again, in my mind) one has to have a clearly identifiable sound, and have a style that makes a major impact on the genre. Clapton certainly influenced people (fans spray painting nonsense like “Clapton is God” didn’t hurt his fame :roll: ), but to me, while his tone is identifiable, his style really isn’t: Listening to a bar of SRV, Albert, or even some the names you mentioned, one can easily identify the player by style. Not so with Clapton, although lame tone certianly will :roll:
Of course this is all coming from someone who will never be even fractionally as good as Clapton, but then I wouldn’t want to sound like him either.
Loren
I’ll try not to get carried away, but I’m enjoying this. Actually, I don’t think we disagree all that much. Maybe on one or two important points which colour others a bit. Not that it matters. Different perspectives are healthy.
I think you’re the only person on earth who thinks this, Loren—usually people think Clapton plays well despite the band. Have you heard the band Mayall had before Clapton joined? I think McVie is very strong but Mayall is a bit sloppy and the band became, IMO, really strong when Mick Fleetwood replaced Hughy Flint on drums for the next album. I know a lot of people who thought Flint’s drum solo was Mayall’s way of telling us that it was time to get another round of drinks.
Agreed. Good rock player, not a good blues player. All flash, no soul. A pest too by all accounts. Big Joe Williams threatened to cut him with a knife. I’d like to have seen that.
Well I didn’t say that; I just said that his playing on the Bluesbreaker album was equal to anything SRV did. (He’s not in my top 10, or top 20 for that matter.) To be honest, though, although I own all the main SRV albums, I’ve never immersed myself in his playing. This exchange makes me want to get them out and see if I’m missing something. He did come along, though, after I’d become disenchanted with the whole guitar hero thing.
As for Clapton’s singing, I think the kindest thing I’d say is: it’s his band, he pays the bills, if the fans will tolerate his singing, that’s their business.
Listening now to most 60s white blues, even American unless it was by older guys like Doug Sahm with loads of bar experience, I think of most of it as blues-influenced and -inspired beat music. Unless you were around and active at the time on that scene—I was still at school but playing semi-pro from my mid teens—it’s hard to appreciate how little we had to go by trying to play the music. No sheet music, hard-to-find expensive import records, no competent teachers, no record guides except word-of-mouth, very few live shows by the real bluesmen, no instruction manuals, no detailed knowledge of inner city ghetto life, hardly any books about blues. A lot of bands had such a weird idea of what made for excitement. Volume substituted for groove, note salads substituted for well-constructed solos, constant rhythmic thrash substituted for dynamics. Oddly, the music that resulted isn’t real blues but has its own appeal, IMO. Let’s face it, heavy metal and hard rock are arguably the direct result of taking those misunderstandings and building styles which make them the principle virtues.
Of course this is one of those rediculous “My Guitar heros are better than your guitar heros” debates that I hate so much, but what the heck, it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure, isn’t it? 
Okay, in all seriousness:
A.) Perhaps I need to go back and listen to the old Clapton/Bluesbreakers stuff again. Having seen the Bluesbreakers live many years ago (but still after Clapton), it’s hard for me to put many of your comments into perspective: By all accounts Mayall has nearly always had a totally smoking band live, and my experience was the same.
B) I think you’re right, this likely comes down to a difference in perspectives: I grew up here in the U.S., to a large degree in black neighborhoods (no political correctness here, it was black and white back then), saw lots of blues live, had both a father and a step father who are/were professional guitar players… which is to say I was exposed to quite a bit of blues for most of my life, and fairly near the root of it. Not that that gives me a leg up or anything, just a different perspective. To me, Clapton was a rock guitar player, he just never had the real blues feel, he always sounded English to me, not at all like the blues I grew up around, I mean when he played blues, it just never felt authentic, something was missing for me. Yeah, he had the technique and he hit all the notes, but it was missing something, to my ear, and still does. But hey, maybe I’ll hunt down those old Bluesbreakers recordings and hear them differently now.
Regarding SRV, I think a lot of his studio stuff missed the mark a bit, I mean each CD has a few great tunes, but some of it is just…well, seems he was sqeezed by the record company into coming up with crossover stuff. A few years back they rerleased on of his older CD’s with a few bonus tracks, one of which was SRV covering Little Wing/Third Stone from the Sun. Now I’m not a big fan of Hendrix covers, it’s a pretty useless exercise if you ask me, but SRV’s cover of Little Wing gives me chills, which is a rare thing! You really have to track that down.
Also, the more I listen to the SRV’s best stuff, the more head and shoulders above the rest he rises in my mind, his phrasing, facility, vocabulary on the instrument, and his feel really are extrodinary. I really do feel he was the last of the Blues Titans.
Out of PC time, gotta run,
Loren