"Junction means crossing or intersection. I mean that's where this
time I crossed Narada and the other collaborators and co-writers. And this is
my seventh solo album. So I added 7 on the end. The image of the figure 7 is
good in my mind. I feel it has some kind of complete strength...."
Winwood, who recorded the album over a 5 ½ month period in his home studio, deliberately set out to make a positive record, in part as an antidote to the negativity in much of today's media. "There's a lot of dark things around us, and this was an effort to make something to lift people's souls a bit - [to] try and give them something spiritual," he says.
Steve Winwood has always thrown plenty of ingredients into his music. Take his unique, timeless voice -- which, by the way, is sounding better than ever -- his longtime love of R&B, some contemporary soul grooves, a couple of spiritual ballads and his formidable experience as a rock heavyweight, put them all together and you arrive at Junction Seven.
"There's a freedom in Traffic. There's a kind of roughness and something that I suppose is some kind of catalyst that Jim gives to me and maybe I give to him,'' Winwood said. "It makes us work in a different way. It's a different thing, being in a group. It gives you another kind of freedom and another environment.''