A country gentleman residing in his dream house in Gloucestershire for a decade, Steve Winwood was born on May 12, 1948, in Birmingham, England, and well-nigh weaned on rock 'n' roll, making a living at the craft when most prospective candidates from the provinces wouldn't know a riff from a rafter. Famous by age 16, he's been praised and panned, celebrated and nearly eulogized in the years since. While assured of a place in the rock 'n' roll Hall of Fame, he was almost dismissed as a lifeless trophy on 2 legs before he strode seemingly out of nowhere to reaffirm his status as one of the most original and sagacious talents in the music industry.

Next to a splintered fence in the Gloucester Farm country, two men stand working. One, a local named Gordon Jackson, is commonly seen tending sheep nearby. The other, despite his short-cropped hair and casual tweeds, looks less like a gentleman farmer than an artist of some kind.

Something about his birdlike features and angular build would ring a bell in the mind of any Traffic fan. Yet this farmer has taken a wide detour from the intensity of those winter evenings in the early 70s when Traffic, the band he fronted, held sway over American Stadiums with its hypnotic rock & roll. Why is Steve Winwood, the maker of such hits as "Freedom Rider", "Dear Mr Fantasy", and "Gimme Some Lovin'", mending a fence? Hasn't it been three and a half years since the last Winwood album? Doesn't he have songs to get on with?