NPR Weekend Edition - Sunday

09-14-2003

Interview: Singer Steve Winwood discusses his career in music

Host: LIANE HANSEN
Time: 1:00-2:00 PM

(Soundbite of "Gimme Some Lovin")

LIANE HANSEN, host:

Steve Winwood was introduced to American audiences 37 years ago. His calling card was the wail of a Hammond organ.

(Soundbite of "Gimme Some Lovin")

HANSEN: His voice also left a lasting impression. It sounded more like Ray Charles than an 18-year-old white kid from Birmingham, England.

(Soundbite of "Gimme Some Lovin")

SPENCER DAVIS GROUP: (Singing) Well, my temperature's rising and my feet hit the floor. Twenty people knocking 'cause they're wanting some more. Let me in, baby, I don't know what you've got, but you better take it easy, this place is hot. And I'm so glad we made it...

HANSEN: Those first heady days with the Spencer Davis Group made it clear that Winwood was something special, a trained musician and a fine songwriter with a great set of pipes. His career took off with the legendary band Traffic. In 1969, he joined forces with Rick Grech, Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton to form what's been called rock's first supergroup, Blind Faith. Then Steve Winwood went solo and produced polished pop songs that reached a high point in 1986 with the single "Higher Love."

(Soundbite of "Higher Love")

Mr. STEVE WINWOOD: (Singing) Bring me a higher love. Bring me a higher love, whoa.

HANSEN: Steve Winwood's organ playing stayed in the background for most of his solo work, but he's brought the Hammond B3 front and center for his new CD. "About Time" was recorded live in the studio with Brazilian guitarist Jose Neto and drummer Walfredo Reyes. There's no bass player. Winwood supplies the low-end oomph with the organ's foot pedals. The result is a fresh, spontaneous sound that the San Francisco Chronicle called a major triumph for one of rock's less celebrated elder statesmen.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. WINWOOD: (Singing) Phoenix ...(unintelligible). Phoenix (unintelligible).

I wanted to go as far as possible back to traditional recording techniques. You know, no loops or overdubs. And when I started to do it, you know, of course, I realized it gave the music a life and vibrancy; also, I was keen to combine different ethnic styles. Well, I've always been interested in combining different ethnic styles, but perhaps with this record I took it a step further by adding Brazilian elements and Afro-Cuban elements, all of which are rooted in African rhythms, but also contain a lot of European harmonic elements. And in addition to that, I tried to maintain a rock basis for the album, combined with the usual folk and jazz flavors.

(Soundbite of music)

HANSEN: There is one instrument that is at the heart of your new CD, and that's the Hammond B3 organ.

Mr. WINWOOD: Yeah.

HANSEN: What is it that sent you to this instrument, one that we normally don't hear in Latin music or African music?

Mr. WINWOOD: That's absolutely right, of course--or Brazilian music or--it's purely an American instrument, an American invention, invented by a man called Lawrence Hammond in the '20s, I think, or early '30s, and Lawrence Hammond himself was a clockmaker. He tried to develop an instrument that actually replaced the pipe organ in churches because he obviously realized that organs in churches were very expensive to maintain and to tune, and so he was hoping that the Hammond organ would be something that would replace that. Of course, he was a bit wide of the mark, I think, because it didn't. But it did create something else. The Hammond organ then had a sound of its own which at some point was picked up by the black churches in America, and then from there was picked up by jazz musicians in the '50s, who integrated those styles and the particular techniques of playing, and then it was, of course, later on picked up by many rock bands and rock musicians, and in fact is used in rock music today.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. WINWOOD: I've always been interested in playing bass, and of course, the Hammond B3 afforded me that opportunity. Traditionally, it was always--the lines played were always a walking type lines, moving lines, although I've tried to adapt more of a tambau(ph), which is more of a syncopated bass style.

HANSEN: What is that word, tambau?

Mr. WINWOOD: Tambau. I believe it's Spanish for bass and drums, but it has lots of different meanings as well. It also means a style of bass playing and a style of congo playing and whatever. But it certainly is a style of bass playing.

HANSEN: Give us a great example on the new CD, a song where the tambau would be evident.

Mr. WINWOOD: Oh, "Cigano" is one, particularly in that middle section. That's a tambau shape. And then "Why Can't We Live Together," there's a tambau, more of a cha-cha-cha tambau.

(Soundbite of "Why Can't We Live Together")

HANSEN: That's a cover tune.

Mr. WINWOOD: It is, yes. That's right. Timmy Thomas did the original in, I think, 1971.

HANSEN: Why did you want to redo it?

Mr. WINWOOD: Well, I was actually looking for, sifting through a lot of my vinyl record collection when I decided to do the album this way, and I was listening to lots of music, things that I'd got on vinyl that utilized organ bass, and when we got together, Walfredo and Jose and I, to make the record, Walfredo actually said, `Do you know that Timmy Thomas song "Why Can't We Live Together?" That, of course, has an organ bass.'

(Soundbite of "Why Can't We Live Together")

Mr. WINWOOD: I knew the song when it came out, and it fitted in with exactly the kind of things we were trying to do; also it had a great lyric which I think stands the test of time, and it was a great song and was just the kind of thing that I wanted to put on the album.

(Soundbite of "Why Can't We Live Together")

Mr. WINWOOD: (Singing) Tell me why, tell me why, tell me why, why can't we live together? Tell me why, tell me why, ooh, why can't we live together? Everybody wants to live together. Why can't we live together?

HANSEN: You dedicate the CD, `It's for Pop'...

Mr. WINWOOD: Yes.

HANSEN: ...your dad, Lawrence.

Mr. WINWOOD: That's right, yeah.

HANSEN: Someone who encouraged your music and...

Mr. WINWOOD: Oh, absolutely, yeah.

HANSEN: And you used to play together with your brother, Muff, and your dad?

Mr. WINWOOD: Yeah. That's right. That's right.

HANSEN: Tell us about the writing of "Take It to the Final Hour."

Mr. WINWOOD: Well, that's something that I'd written and worked on with a friend of mine who also knew my father well, man by the name of Anthony Crawford, and I worked with him on the song, and naturally it was a completely different version and a different feel that I'd got on the song and I brought it to Jose and Walfredo and they helped to create the arrangement that we now hear.

HANSEN: And this is for your father, something you wanted to write for him?

Mr. WINWOOD: Yes.

HANSEN: Is it true your dad passed away last year?

Mr. WINWOOD: That's right, yes.

HANSEN: Yeah.

Mr. WINWOOD: Yeah.

HANSEN: And this was a way of paying some homage to him?

Mr. WINWOOD: That's absolutely right, yeah.

HANSEN: Yeah.

(Soundbite of "Take It to the Final Hour")

Mr. WINWOOD: (Singing) Off out into the distance now, someday she is on her way to bring us all together now. Hold on to what my father said. Take it to the final hour. Hold on to what my father said. Take it to the final hour. Yeah.

HANSEN: Do you still feel at all connected to that adolescent Stevie Winwood that played, you know, "Gimme Some Lovin" with the Spencer Davis Group?

Mr. WINWOOD: Well, I don't know whether I feel connected to my adolescence, but obviously as a song it seems to stand the test of time fairly well, and we've been doing different arrangements of it, and the song seems to live on.

HANSEN: Hmm. But does that young Stevie Winwood seem to be, you know, so far in the past or do you think we can still see him in...

Mr. WINWOOD: Well, it is quite a long way in the past.

HANSEN: Yeah. Yeah.

Mr. WINWOOD: And, I mean, I have no control over that.

HANSEN: Your voice is still, I mean, remarkable. Do you not smoke? Do you not drink? I mean, you take good care of it?

Mr. WINWOOD: No, don't do any of that. And I generally take good care of it, yeah.

HANSEN: Yeah. Anything special that you do to it? Any secret that we all can learn?

Mr. WINWOOD: Shout at my children and the dogs and--no, not really. I don't do anything special, no.

HANSEN: Yeah.

(Soundbite of "Silvia")

Mr. WINWOOD: Silvia, I can see wisdom in your eyes. Silvia, love will be...

HANSEN: You are touring, playing before audiences. Let me ask you: How do you like it?

Mr. WINWOOD: It's good actually. I think I'm actually enjoying it more now than I possibly had done before because I'm just doing exactly what I want to do, which I don't know why I really didn't think of that a long time ago. The band is a great band and it's probably not everybody's cup of tea as regards a show, because it's not a singing, dancing extravaganza like many shows that you find, and in fact, I think there are actually a lot of shows which are more of a theatrical revue with music added, but I think we are presenting something, perhaps you should say an alternative to that. I think the show is much more about musical interaction between people.

(Soundbite of music)

HANSEN: How do your kids feel about your music?

Mr. WINWOOD: Well, I've got a teen-ager who's actually a 16-year-old, and I've got a 14-year-old, and then a 10-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl, and they seem to like it. I mean, they listen to lots of different kinds of music. I mean, some of the music they listen to I can't make much sense of it, but I think they quite like the music I play.

HANSEN: That's always an interesting dynamic no matter what field you're in between a teen-ager and his mom and dad.

Mr. WINWOOD: It--absolutely. You're dead right. I don't think that changes at all, even with "The Osbournes" I don't think it changes, does it?

HANSEN: Steve Winwood. His new CD is "About Time." It's on the Wincraft Music label.

Thank you so much for this conversation.

Mr. WINWOOD: You're very welcome, Liane. Thank you.

(Soundbite of music)

HANSEN: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.

(Soundbite of music)