Characteristically, Winwood - as obliging a bloke as you'll find - isn't disturbed that people sometimes fail to associate him with the best-known song of his career, a song that has been a dance-floor burner since he co-wrote and sang it as a teenage prodigy with the Spencer Davis Group in 1966. Perversely, he almost seems to enjoy the lack of recognition.
Mr. Winwood has drawn on soul music since his teens, when as the lead singer for the Spencer Davis Group he delivered some of the richest, reediest vocals in British pop. With Traffic, in the late 1960's and early 1970's, he also dipped into jazz and Caribbean music. With his first solo album in 1977, Mr. Winwood began to smooth out and focus his songs to provide reassurance above all. His current hit, ''Roll With It,'' echoes his first Spencer Davis Group successes, but where the old songs were frantic with lust, ''Roll With It'' is reflective; it's also deliberately backward-looking, copying old Memphis soul instead of adapting it.
"I primarily came through rock 'n' roll as a musician," he says, "from the musician's side of rock 'n' roll. Many people think that rock 'n roll is a lot of things .. a way of life, a social statement, etcetera. But for me, rock 'n; roll has always been music. Of course, having said that, I realize that if you sing songs and make records you are actually an entertainer whether you like it or not, and some people say they are artists and all this ..." The quote collapses with exhaustion. Somewhere in the dim lights, coffee is poured.