Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi - Timothy White's Rock Stars, Emerald Sound Studios, Nashville, TN, 11-1990

Here's an extra cool treat, in my opinion. If you're a fan of Steve Winwood and/or Traffic, you should give this a listen. That's doubly so if you're into acoustic music as I am, because this features just ex-Traffic members Steve Winwood or guitar or piano, and Jim Capaldi on (light) drums.

In 1990, Winwood released the solo studio album "Refugees of the Heart." It wasn't one of his better efforts. But it led to a reunion of Winwood with Capaldi, who had a moderately successful solo career until this point. Winwood and Capaldi wrote most Traffic songs together. For "Refugees of the Heart," they co-wrote one song, "One and Only Man," and Capaldi played drums on a few others.

Once the album was released, the two of them continued writing songs together. This eventually morphed into the release of the 1994 Traffic album "Far from Home," though they were the only two members of Traffic on it. By the way, I considered whether I should bill this as "Traffic" or not, since this is the exact same line-up as that album. But for this show they were billed just as Winwood and Capaldi, so I went with that. They wouldn't decide to bill themselves as Traffic again until 1992, after the suggestion of a fan.

This is very much like an episode of "VH-1 Storytellers," because there was a lot of talking between songs. There was more, but I edited a lot of it out. Mainly, I cut out most of the vocals of DJ Timothy White. Also, songwriter Will Jennings stopped by halfway through the show. He spoke a little bit, but I cut out virtually everything from him. What I kept were the parts of the discussions that related to the songs they were playing. I tried to make it similar to a concert experience where performers often explain some about the songs they're about to play.

Ironically, even though this radio appearance was supposed to promote the album "Refugees of the Heart," there is only one song here from that album, "I Will Be Here." They played two songs that were still unreleased, "Here Comes a Man" and "Nowhere Is Their Freedom." Both of those would appear on the 1994 Traffic album "Far from Home." Instead, they mostly played and talked about old Traffic songs, as well as a few others from various points in Winwood's career, including "Presence of the Lord," a Blind Faith song written by Eric Clapton. Musically, this is dominated by Winwood, with all of the lead vocals by him, and Capaldi often on backing vocals. But both of them talked a lot between songs.

I did a fair amount of creative editing here, due to the way I cut the talking down to make the whole thing better for repeat listenings. I moved some of the talking bits, and also moved some of the songs, for various reasons, such as not wanting there to be too long of a stretch of talking between songs. I also figured out there were a couple of songs here that weren't on the usual bootlegs. Instead, they appeared on a DVD released years later called "From the Archives." The reason I know they're from here is because a couple of songs on that are exactly the same as the bootleg versions. Plus, all of them featured Winwood and Capaldi in an acoustic context, and this was the only time that seemed to have been recorded.

Capaldi died of cancer in 2005 at the age of 60. He and Winwood were starting to work on another album together, but that effort had to stop due to Capaldi's health rapidly declining. It seems this is the one and only time they did an extensive acoustic session like this that was recorded for posterity. It really is a unique find for fans of this music.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
02 Valerie [Edit] (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
03 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
04 I'm a Man (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
05 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
06 Here Comes a Man (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
07 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
08 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
09 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
10 No Face, No Name, No Number (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
11 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
12 Empty Pages (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
13 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
14 Nowhere Is Their Freedom (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
15 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
16 I Will Be Here (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
17 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
18 While You See a Chance (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
19 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
20 Don't You Know What the Night Can Do (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
21 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
22 Presence of the Lord (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
23 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
24 John Barleycorn (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
25 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
26 The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)
27 talk (Steve Winwood & Jim Capaldi)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700508/STEVWNWOD1990_TimthyWhitsRckStrsEmerldSundStdiosNshvlleTN__11-1990_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken somewhere in 1994. I adjusted Jim Capaldi's eyes (he's on the one with moustache and goatee) so they are looking at the camera like Steve Winwood's.