| The Finer Things | ||||
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| Box set by | ||||
| Released | 21 March 1995 | |||
| Recorded | 1964–1990 | |||
| Genre | Blue-eyed soul Rock Blues-rock Psychedelic rock Jazz | |||
| Label | Island | |||
| Steve Winwood chronology | ||||
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The Finer Things is a compilation album box set of recordings by Steve Winwood. It includes songs from his early days with The Spencer Davis Group through Traffic and Blind Faith and into his work during his solo career. [1] [2]
A supergroup is a musical performing group whose members have successful solo careers, are members of other groups, or are well known in other musical professions. The term can sometimes also be applied to a group that has no specific preferred genre. The term is usually used in the context of rock and pop music, but it has occasionally been applied to other musical genres. For example, The Three Tenors—composed of opera superstars José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti—have been called a supergroup.
Traffic were an English rock band, formed in Birmingham, in April 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason. They began as a psychedelic rock group and diversified their sound through the use of instruments such as keyboards like the Mellotron and harpsichord, sitar, and various reed instruments, and by incorporating jazz and improvisational techniques in their music. Their first three singles were "Paper Sun", "Hole in My Shoe", and "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush".
Blind Faith were an English supergroup featuring Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech, active in mostly 1969. They were eagerly anticipated by the music press as a continuation of Clapton and Baker's former group Cream and Winwood's former group Traffic, but they split after one album and tour.
Stephen Lawrence Winwood is an English singer, songwriter and musician whose genres include progressive rock, blue-eyed soul, rhythm and blues, blues rock, pop rock, and jazz. Though primarily a vocalist and keyboard player, Winwood also plays a wide variety of other instruments; on several of his solo albums he has played all instrumentation, including drums, mandolin, guitars, bass and saxophone.
Blind Faith is the self-titled and only album by the English supergroup Blind Faith, originally released in 1969 on Polydor Records in the United Kingdom and Europe and on Atlantic Records in the United States. It topped the album charts in the UK, Canada and US, and was listed at No. 40 on the US Soul Albums chart. It has been certified platinum by the RIAA.
James Capaldi was an English singer-songwriter and drummer. His musical career spanned more than four decades. He co-founded the psychedelic rock band Traffic in 1967 with Steve Winwood with whom he co-wrote the majority of the band's material. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a part of Traffic's original line-up.
James Miller was an American record producer and musician. While he produced albums for dozens of different bands and artists, he is most closely associated for his work with several key musical acts of the 1960s and 1970s. He rose to prominence working with the various bands of vocalist Steve Winwood. His best acclaimed work was his late 1960s-early 1970s work with the Rolling Stones for whom he produced a string of singles and albums that rank among the most critically and financially successful works of the band's career: Beggars Banquet (1968), Let It Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971), Exile on Main St. (1972) and Goats Head Soup (1973). In the late 1970s, he began working with the band Motörhead and continued to produce until his death in 1994.
"Dear Mr. Fantasy" is a rock song by Traffic from their 1967 album, Mr. Fantasy. Jim Capaldi contributed the lyrics, while Steve Winwood and Chris Wood composed the music.
Stomu Yamashta, born Tsutomu Yamashita, is a Japanese percussionist, keyboardist and composer. He is best known for pioneering and popularising a fusion of traditional Japanese percussive music with Western progressive rock music in the 1960s and 1970s.
Anthony "Rebop" Kwaku Baah was a Ghanaian percussionist who worked with the 1970s rock groups Traffic and Can.
Rosko Gee is a Jamaican bassist, who has played with the English band Traffic on their albums When the Eagle Flies (1974) and The Last Great Traffic Jam (2005); with Go featuring Stomu Yamashta, Steve Winwood, Michael Shrieve, Klaus Schulze and Al Di Meola; and with the German band Can, along with former Traffic percussionist Rebop Kwaku Baah, appearing on the albums Saw Delight, Out of Reach and Can. He toured with Can in 1977 and also provided vocals for some of the band's songs during this period.
Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse was a British blues rock studio group formed in 1966. They recorded three songs, which were released on the Elektra Records sampler album What's Shakin' in 1966. A possible fourth song remained unreleased.
London Hyde Park 1969 is the official video album by Blind Faith of their appearance at a free concert held in Hyde Park in London on 7 June 1969. It was released in the UK in 2005, and in the US and Canada in 2006. The concert was the band's debut performance and took place two months before the release of their debut album, Blind Faith in August 1969.
What's Shakin' is a compilation album released by Elektra Records in June 1966. It features the earliest studio recordings by the Lovin' Spoonful and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, as well as the only released recordings by the ad hoc studio group Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse, until they were reissued years later.
Richard Roman Grechko, better known as Ric Grech, was a British rock musician and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known for playing bass guitar and violin with Family as well as in the supergroups Blind Faith and Traffic. He also played with ex-Cream drummer Ginger Baker's Air Force.
Live from Madison Square Garden is a 2 CD/2 DVD live album by Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood which was released on 19 May 2009 by Duck / Reprise Records. The album is made up of recordings from Clapton and Winwood's performances at Madison Square Garden in February 2008. It is Eric Clapton's ninth live album and Steve Winwood's first live album as a solo artist.
"Roamin' Thru' the Gloamin' with 40,000 Headmen", written by Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, was first recorded by Traffic in 1967 or 1968. It was initially released as B-side to the "No Face, No Name and No Number" single in 1968 and also appears on their second album Traffic. Blood, Sweat & Tears also recorded it on their 1970 album, Blood, Sweat & Tears 3.
Winwood is the first compilation album of music featuring Steve Winwood. This two-record set was issued in 1971 by United Artists Records and features music which Winwood performed with The Spencer Davis Group, Powerhouse, Traffic and Blind Faith. UA Records issued this album after Winwood's band Traffic left UA when their home label Island Records set up their own American operation. Issued without Winwood's authorization as catalogue number UAS-9950, it was taken off the market after legal action by Winwood and Island Records. It was then reissued with minor changes as catalogue number UAS-9964. Currently out of print, it was issued on CD by Universal Music of Japan for the Japanese market.
Discography of The Spencer Davis Group.
Revolutions – The Very Best of Steve Winwood is the sixth compilation album by Steve Winwood. The album includes music from Winwood's solo career, as well as groups with which he has performed, including the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, and Blind Faith. The CD was released as a box set and a single disc. As of October 2014, the box set is out of print, while the single disc is still available. The songs "The Finer Things" and "Roll With It" are exclusive to the single disc version and cannot be found on the box set.
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