I'm going to post Far From Home on Tuesday in case those that don't have it want to pick it up through Amazon Prime or your local store. I'm only listening to it now for the second time, I took the shrink wrap off this week. I'll say at this point it hits me as a Winwood solo album with Winwood/Capaldi penned songs ... if this were a Winwood solo album and not a Traffic album, I would venture to say it might be his best ... but more on that Tuesday.
Smiling Phases runs to 61+ minutes per disc. Compiled by Kevin Patrick (who?), perhaps he had ideas of it being released as a double LP. There's no mastering credit but it's believed to be a flat transfer. The UK CDs were manufactured by PDO and are in danger of succumbing to CD Bronzing (my copy is showing visible signs of this but still sounds fine).
I have prime and was ready to order but away at present so will have to rely on youtube or suchlike, thats if its on there. Never heard anything from it to date.
Whilst i'm good with the sound of SP I will admit that the cd's themselves do not look to be ageing well. Plus my disc two already has some issues playing, its not visibly scratched but does sometimes struggle to play the later songs. I did wonder if it was meant for a vinyl album but that would be too lengthy timewise per side. Perhaps a nice triple vinyl best of would be good. 3 sides per era - 67/68 & 70/74.
I don't remember hearing he was pressured to do the first album. After Traffic split, Steve (in 1976) collaborated on Stomu Yamashta's GO. I went to the Royal Albert Hall show - met Steve (and Chris Wood!) at the stage door after the show, and got autographs. Somewhere I have a Melody Maker (maybe it's NME or Sounds) from those days with a SW interview claiming "I'm gonna do an album a week!". He never did. Must dig it out....
I bought Smiling Phases a while back (probably when it came out), but I don't remember why. Is there anything unique to this compilation? Its a nice listen in any case, though I usually prefer the complete albums.
It wasn't for Mulberry, since I have the vinyl soundtrack. (unless I just wanted it on cd). It might have been some track timings. On my original cd version of JB the timings for Glad/FR are 6:32/6:20 ( the cd itself is 6:59/5:29) and I just looked at my LP which also lists this as 6:30/6:02 but haven't checked. So I may have thought something was up with these. There's also the timing on Low Spark (discussed earlier I think) 12:10 on LP and orig cd, but listed here as 11:35. CD is actually 11:40 Then also I may have been fooled by the timing of Paper Sun, and tacking we're a fade on to the end.Since my LP time was 3:23 (though I had the 3DBase CD which also combined them). In the end, not clear to me there was a need to get this, though I have to admit I enjoy the compilation.
June 6th 1971 - Traffic play Fairfield Halls Croydon - Winwood/Capaldi/Wood/Grech/Gordon/Mason - Grech played violin on a new song "What's Your Name?" - Wonder what that became?
While enjoying this thread, after a hot day at the salt mines I hopped into my car just when a local prog rock show came on (oddly titled Continental Drift). And the DJ started out with a couple "classics" -- "Heaven Is In Your Mind," and "Paper Sun." Played them loud and they really put a smile on my face, especially as we have been discussing Traffic for the last couple weeks.
It was the Melody Maker. March 17th 1973. A month after the Eric Clapton Rainbow concert. SW claimed he was "going to put down a solo album in May" (1973). After peritonitis, in the 2nd half of 1972, SW contributed to Viv Stanshall's solo album. At the time of the interview he was working on the Third World / Aiye Keta LP. He was a fan of the Mahavishnu Orchestra then.
Melody Maker June 8th 1974. Winwood discusses the new LP - Eagle. Then, "after this" he was doing the solo album at home. He was "getting into" the Moog & didn't like flying.
Side note: I saw the new Spider-Man film last night...and during a specific scene, I heard a small bit of Low Spark...put a smile on my face
The remaster discs were done quite well. And, it's nice to have the mono version of their first album, plus the mono singles.
Especially since the U.S. and U.K. versions of the album had different tracks listings and some of the mono and stereo versions of the tracks were also different.
Indeed! Perfect example is Giving To You...mono and stereo album mixes were different, then the mono 45 was also different