Monocled Alchemist

Article published in Rave magazine – May 1967

Stevie Winwood walked out on success when he left the Spencer Davis Group. Now he intends to lose his image, and change his style and his looks to direct a new group called the Traffic. Here he talks to RAVE about his decision.

Steve Winwood leaving the Spencer Davis Group | I didn’t want to leave Spence in the cart, but I had to think of myself. I’m sorry if I messed things up for him, but it’s no good going through life never doing what you want because of the effect it might have on someone else. I intended leaving Spence and he knew it. The time came when I wasn’t happy with the music any more, so I eft.”

Stevie Winwood, eighteen year old singer, ex-Spencer Davis Group, temporarily unemployed, shortly to become leader of a new group, the Traffic, talked plainly about his future and his past.

“I’m doing six months of writing and studying with the three members of my new group. They are James Capaldi, drums, David Mason, guitar, and Chris Wood, sax and woodwind. We are going to live in my cottage and write music together. I shall not be writing anything else on my own.”

Stevie was the boy wonder whose voice did so much in making those longed-for Spencer Davis hit records. Yet since his time as a pop idol, he has become more and more nervy, tired and unhappy. He never wanted to be a pop star. In an earlier interview he told me, ‘I don’t like pop. It has done nothing for me.”

Steve Winwood leaving the Spencer Davis Group

Now Stevie says, “Pop did nothing for me personally because I’m not flattered when kids scream at me. But pop taught me a lot, and I’m glad I went through that phase.”

But did the pop success of the Spencer Davis group mean a quicker end to Stevie as lead singer?

“No. I would have left earlier if it hadn’t been for the pop success. Pop was a new scene when we were getting a bit stale.”

Did he make money out of pop, and does he need a great deal of money?

“I made a bit of money, enough to get the things I need like an organ, and other instruments, and a cottage to live and write my music in.

Cities don’t suit me

“I certainly don’t regard money as essential. As long as I have my cottage I don’t care. Surroundings influence me a lot. I need a place far away from anywhere to write in. Cities don’t suit me, and the noises you get in them don’t bring sounds for my music. I like quiet. To explain how I write is hard. Just anything sets me off.

“I feel a sound. There is music inside me and it has to come out. There is a bit of emotion mixed up in it too. Of course, until I plan my instruments I don’t really know what it will be like. Once it’s there, we all work on it. Sometimes it ends up completely different to what it came out like. But it started us off.

“I feel my music. When I’m singing I have to feel that too. One of the things I couldn’t stand about pop was having to sing the same songs every night in the same way. Not being listened to properly was deadly. I couldn’t give myself to fans who weren’t listening. If I had to sum up what kind of audience we are going for in future, I’d say a listening audience.

Work Abroad

“Some kids listen good. There were a growing number in Spencer’s audience that listened, but too many of them listened only because they liked my hair or hips, or something. I don’t want to limit my audiences by putting them in a category. All ages, all sorts are what we want. We want to work abroad too, because real music has no language or colour bar.

“l am taking over the lead vocal again and the organ, but we will all be playing different instruments. I don’t want to be a typical lead singer. That is too restricted. I don’t ever want to sing the same way twice.”

Stevie would like to lose his present image. He intends changing his style and looks, and feels this will help him to get free of the pop idol bit.

“I’m walking out on success, and I don’t regret it. Why aren’t I more thrilled at that success? I don’t know.

“If I was very moved by success I’d have waited and left Spence after the American tour. I feel I have done all I can with the group, and now I must get out or be swallowed up into oblivion of just another hit-making machine. I must do more with my life than that.

Steve Winwood leaving the Spencer Davis Group

“I want to work with my new group thinking as one. With Spence we were thinking as individuals. This didn’t suit me. I got upset and annoyed, and felt alone, and it was no use trying, because no-one was with me.”

Right now, as he embarks on his six months of solitude he is already happier and more relaxed than he has been for ages. He has just written two songs for two films, a new venture for him.

“Writing for them was enjoyable, but limiting again. I had to fit in with the theme of the films. It was interesting, though, like an exercise. But I prefer complete freedom when writing.”

“I like to read, though of late I’ve not had the time. I like to discuss the prospects of travel to different countries. Mostly I like the company of my friends when we can talk about things. But I don’t dig cities and club scenes at all.

Leaving a thriving group

“I believe that a group should be real close. Live together, play together, work together. We do this. This way we are complete, producing our kind of music on paper and in sounds. When we aren’t working we are thinking, and when we aren’t thinking we are messing about. But always together. So in the end everything we are is in our music.”

Why did he leave a thriving group?

“To gain more things for music. To expand in my own direction.”

What is he aiming at now?

“All-round audiences who listen and music that isn’t too repetitive.”

Will he find his happiness?

“My happiness is music.”

And he meant it, too!

More about Traffic on The Monocled Alchemist