STEVE WINWOOD
IX Lives (Columbia): B+
When you’ve got a story as storied as Winwood’s, looking to your past for inspiration can bear away. It does here as Winwood harks back to the rifling, rhythmic spirit of his ahead of time ’70s work with Traffic. Keeping the arrangements simple and uncluttered, just peppering tunes with sax, fluting and percussion, Winwood keeps his ever-soulful voice and organ front and center and captures some of that ol’ Traffic jam magic trick. He as well brings on his old Screen Religious belief better half Eric Clapton to add guitar obligato on “Begrime City”; download it to hear Slowhand’s most incisive solo in eld.
