Steve Winwood Documentary - The Reluctant Superstar

Steve Wynwood is more than just one of music's top singers and songwriters. He's a producer, recording engineer, multi-instrumentalist, and three-time Grammy Award winner. And I made a bookmark in my head that one day I would love to play with him. Very inspirational to us as a band as well because we were accepted as part of that scene. Steve Wynwood. A boy from Birmingham who could out-sing the grown-ups, out-play the pros, and outlast the trends. His name isn't shouted as loudly as some of his peers, but his fingerprints are all over the history of modern music. A quiet revolutionary, with a hammered organ, and a voice full of soul. This isn't just the story of a man who made hits. It's the story of a musical life spent searching for sound, for truth, for something more than the charts. From school halls to stadiums, from traffic to triumph. This is Steve Wynwood. A guy came over from England and needed a place to play and I said, you know, come down, and he's kind of lurking in the background, but Stevie Wynwood. Stephen Lawrence Wynwood was born into a house full of music. His father, a semi-professional musician, filled the home with big band records, jazz standards, and an expectation that music mattered. My father was a semi-professional musician. He left school about 14. He was mainly a saxophone and clarinet player. By the age of four, Steve was at the piano. By eight, he was experimenting with drums and guitar. And by 11, he was playing regular gigs with his father's dance band, carefully hidden behind speakers so the venue wouldn't realise a child was manning the keyboard. There were always instruments in the house, so it was a very natural thing that I would be expected that I should be able to carry a bit of a tune. The real shock was his voice. Rich, soulful, and remarkably assured. When people first heard it, they assumed it came from a seasoned black American singer, not a skinny white teenager from the Midlands. His older brother, Muff, also musically inclined, encouraged Steve's development. I was really motivated by my tiny brother, who I could immediately see had some fantastic musical intuition. Together, they devoured blues records from the States. Ray Charles, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker, absorbing them not just as fans, but as students. Steve would play all the Dwayne Eddy kind of things, and I'd back him up. And of course, they'd go down an absolute storm. Steve wasn't imitating the music, he was internalising it. By the time most kids were stressing over O-levels, Wynwood was already being scouted by managers and musicians alike. At 15, Wynwood joined the Spencer Davis Group, initially as a keyboardist, but his talent as a singer was too obvious to keep in the background. Steve Wynwood joined the Spencer Davis Group when he was only 15 years old. Spencer discovered Steve's musical talents after seeing him perform in his brother Muff's jazz band. As we realised how good Steve was with his singing, he more and more took over as being the singer. His voice became the band's hallmark. Deep, growling, emotional, with a gospel edge that belied his youth. It wasn't long before the band scored its first number one. Keep On Running was raw, urgent, and irresistible. Had to bring something else into the music Spencer Davis Group were playing. We attempted to do that with Keep On Running. When we had our number one with Keep On Running, Steve was a real pop star. By 16, Wynwood was already a star. People were astounded by his piano and guitar playing, and no one could believe that such a soulful voice was coming from this skinny little white kid from Birmingham, England. Keep On Running, a song written by Jamaican singer Jackie Edwards, knocked the Beatles' Day Tripper off the number one spot in January 1966. Suddenly, Steve Wynwood was a star, but he wasn't acting like one. While his mates were celebrating chart success, he was still living at home and taking the bus to gigs. Things weren't really going too well then with my school work. Somebody Help Me and Gimme Some Lovin' followed, each hit propelling the group further onto the international stage. They became part of the British invasion, sharing bills with The Who and The Rolling Stones, but Wynwood never looked entirely comfortable with fame. He wasn't chasing the spotlight, he was chasing the music. And by the time I'm a Man climbed the charts, he was already thinking about what came next. He wanted more space, more freedom, more sound. If you viewed it as a career with a revenue stream, you'd view it as some kind of ridiculous move. But if you look at the music, it's an obvious move. 1966 saw huge changes in the music scene, with many bands breaking free from the tyranny of the pop charts to assert their creative independence. In 1967, Wynwood made his move. He formed traffic with drummer and lyricist Jim Capaldi, flautist and sax player Chris Wood, and the unpredictable guitar talent of Dave Mason. Steve formed traffic with three friends he'd bonded with over jam sessions at an after-hours club back in Birmingham. Flute and sax player Chris Wood, drummer Jim Capaldi, and guitarist and sitar player Dave Mason. Traffic wasn't built for hits, it was built for exploration. Their music drew on jazz improvisation, folk melodies, R&B grooves and the swirling psychedelia of the era. They retreated to a cottage in Berkshire to write and rehearse, away from the pressure of pop success. There was nothing there, it was just rolling down as far as you could see, and this one brick house sitting out in the middle of nowhere. It's just fantastic, just heaven, middle of nowhere, freedom. It's just a magical time. There was many times when all they did all day was smoke dope, and that gave them a much different attitude. We just ate when we wanted to eat, we woke up when we wanted to wake up, and we played when we wanted to play. The result was Mr Fantasy, a debut album full of sitars, backward tapes and soulful organ riffs. Dear Mr Fantasy became their signature, a haunting swirl of yearning vocals and blistering guitar. Traffic felt like a band out of time, both ahead of it and outside it. But not everyone in the band believed as wholeheartedly as Steve in Traffic's organic and collaborative method of songwriting. Internal tensions, particularly with Mason, led to a revolving door lineup. It just became those three and me. But the core of Wynwood, Capaldi and Wood remained. He was off on another road to us, which is fine, but the fact of the matter, it wasn't the same route that we were going. What's going on, guys? Well, basically, man, we don't like the way you sing or play or write or do anything. We just want you out of the band. That's how it ended. John Barleycorn, Must Die, released after a brief hiatus, was both a return and a reinvention. Wynwood regrouped with Traffic and recorded John Barleycorn, Must Die, originally intended as his first solo album. Blending English folk with extended jazz rock improvisation, it showcased Wynwood at the height of his musical powers. He wasn't just the frontman, he was the arranger, the instrumentalist, the alchemist. Traffic may never have had the mass appeal of some of their contemporaries, but their influence ran deep. And their music aged better than most. These were my very good friends that I lived here with, and they're all gone, you know, so it's, of course, it's a sort of bittersweet, you know, return. I think living together, there's no substitute for that. They were an improvisational band, like the Grateful Dead were. They were kindred spirits, very much so. In 1969, Eric Clapton was restless, Ginger Baker was adrift, and Steve Wynwood was in a reflective mood, fresh from Traffic's first split. Each of them was looking for something new, something beyond the limits of their previous bands. In 1969, at the height of Traffic's success, Wynwood took a leave of absence from the band and joined up with Creams, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker to form one of rock's first supergroups, the short-lived but now classic Blind Faith. When Wynwood reached out to Clapton, the idea of working together felt inevitable. They were soon joined by Baker, Clapton's bandmate from Cream, and then bassist Rick Gretsch from Family. The group was completed with bassist Rick Gretsch. Blind Faith, quite incredibly, gave their debut performance in front of 20,000 people. Before they'd even played a proper note, the press had christened them a supergroup. We were labelled as being the first supergroup. Someone came up with that. Their one and only album was a mix of brilliance and tension. Presence of the Lord was soaring and spiritual. Can't Find My Way Home, with Wynwood's plaintive vocal and acoustic guitar, was fragile and timeless. A lament for something undefined. But the pressure was unsustainable. Stadium tours, media frenzy and creative disagreements took their toll. Well, here we are again. This is the same... I'm in Cream, basically. Blind Faith disbanded after just one album and a single US tour. Very disappointing, yeah. For me, you know, considering, you know, who was up there. It never became a band. It never got group mind. What they left behind, though, was a snapshot of something magical and fleeting. Four superb musicians colliding at just the right moment, then drifting apart just as quickly. It never became more than the individuals. Steve and I needed more time. Wynwood walked away, not with regret, but with clarity. He dipped into the world of megastardom and found it lacking. What he wanted was simpler. Space to create. Freedom to experiment. And a path that wasn't dictated by charts or headlines. I felt I still had a lot of music in me. The early 70s saw traffic return, now more focused and expansive than ever. The low spark of high-heeled boys became a cult classic. Its odd time signatures and jazzy grooves setting it apart from the blues rock crowd. I loved that thing with traffic mixing all these different types of music. There was kind of jazz, there was folk, there was rock and there was soul and R&B. But by 1974, it was over. Chris Wood's health was deteriorating. Went to bed that night and his appendix blew. Capaldi was pursuing a solo career and Wynwood, exhausted, withdrew. Four years and four albums later, traffic came to an end in 1974. He built a home studio and started tinkering. He played everything himself. Drums, bass, guitar, keys. He learned to engineer and produce. He wrote songs with no deadlines, no expectations. After the traffic communal experiment had come to an end, Steve had moved to rural Gloucestershire. His first solo album in 1977 was introspective and sparse. Critics were divided, but it planted the seeds for something more fully formed. Ark of a Diver. This time, the melodies soared. While You See a Chance was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. More importantly, it felt like Wynwood had found his voice. Again. He wasn't competing with his past. He was evolving. Slowly, quietly, and without fuss. I could feel Steve just going into the future. It's a lot of rebirth in that song. The whole grammar of music was changing in the 1980s. Steve's solo career was positioned to capture the emerging adult-orientated rock audience. By the mid-80s, the charts were ruled by synths and suits. Not exactly the natural home for a blues-loving multi-instrumentalist, but somehow, Wynwood not only adapted, he flourished. Back in the High Life was slick, polished, and radio-friendly, but it was also heartfelt. Higher Love, written with Will Jennings and powered by Chaka Khan's backing vocals, became a transatlantic smash. It won him two Grammys and put him in heavy rotation on MTV. But this wasn't Steve selling out. It was Steve reaching a new peak on his own terms. He still played most of the instruments. He still crafted songs with patience and precision. The follow-up, Roll With It, doubled down on the soul influences. The title track became his second US number one. Wynwood had managed what few of his peers could, bridging the gap between the 60s and the 80s without losing himself. He was now a global star, but still lived like a session man who got lucky. The 90s and 2000s were quieter, but Wynwood never stopped. He reunited with Capaldi for a final traffic tour. He released new albums, Refugees of the Heart, Junction 7, Nine Lives, that showed he was still curious, still experimenting. None made a huge splash, but they all carried his unmistakable stamp. Layered instrumentation, soulful vocals, and that sense of searching. In 2008, he reunited with Clapton for a series of shows at Madison Square Garden. The setlist dipped into blind faith, traffic, and solo material. For fans, it was a revelation. For Wynwood, it was a reminder that the past still mattered, but it didn't define him. Even into his 70s, he continued to tour, often with stripped down bands. No lasers, no dancers, just music. So who is Steve Wynwood? To those who've worked with him, he's a perfectionist with an encyclopedic knowledge of music. To his fans, he's a voice that still cuts through the noise. Privately, he's lived a quiet, grounded life. Married since the late 80s, with four children. A home in the English countryside. Another in Nashville. He gardens. He reads. He still plays. He's not one for memoirs or tell-alls. His story is in the music. A song like Can't Find My Way Home isn't just a lyric. It's a mood, a feeling, a glimpse into the soul of a man who's always been on a journey. Steve Wynwood never fit into a box. Not quite a pop star. Not quite a rocker. Too soulful for prog. Too cerebral for soul. And yet, he did it all. As a teenager, he fronted one of Britain's biggest beat groups. In his 20s, he pushed boundaries with traffic. In his 30s, he reinvented himself as a solo star. In his 40s and beyond, he quietly influenced generations. He's never chased fame. He's chased sound. Chased feel. Chased the elusive mix of groove and grace. And perhaps that's why his music still resonates. It isn't dated. It isn't tied to a moment. It just is. Steve Wynwood didn't just ride the wave. He helped shape it. And all these decades later, he's still finding his way home. Let's face it, folks. It had to end somewhere. 1282, take one. The end.