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Desert Island for the Win...


While You See a Chance 4 votes

Arc of a Diver 4 votes

Valerie 0 votes

Higher Love 5 votes

Freedom Overspill 0 votes

Back in the High Life 2 votes

The Finer Things 0 votes

Don't You Know What the Night Can Do? 0 votes

Roll with It 2 votes

Still in the Game 0 votes

John Cougar Lunchbucket
May 28 2015 07:40 AM

...wood.

Steve Winwood was barely in his teens when he joined with his older brother Muff as the organist in the Spencer Davis Group and would go on to participate in a slate of English blues-based supergroups of the 60s and 70s including Traffic and Blind Faith. But that was all prelude to one of the most unlikely rockets of pop stardom in the 1980s.

Today your preparation for a lifetime of solitude on a desert island is to select one (1) song from the Winwood Solo Era to go on your Mixtape. Included here are his biggest hit singles, and there were more than even I remembered: If you wish to write in a nominee please make it a Winwood solo effort. Good luck! Vote! Discuss! What is the meaning of Steve Winwood?

While You See a Chance
[youtube:28k9b979]0j6g_uUhH2c[/youtube:28k9b979]

Arc of a Diver
[youtube:28k9b979]Cq6pZZYgGJk[/youtube:28k9b979]

Valerie
[youtube:28k9b979]cbKNICg-REA[/youtube:28k9b979]

Higher Love
[youtube:28k9b979]gwuHtbcvTh8[/youtube:28k9b979]

Freedom Overspill
[youtube:28k9b979]pYC2Oqwcycg[/youtube:28k9b979]

Back in the High Life
[youtube:28k9b979]wIct9ZyL2WA[/youtube:28k9b979]

The Finer Things
[youtube:28k9b979]EOGSeCfXzDw[/youtube:28k9b979]

Don't You Know What the Night can Do?
[youtube:28k9b979]RY5W2Yfze7M[/youtube:28k9b979]

Roll With It
[youtube:28k9b979]fWptXUblA4E[/youtube:28k9b979]

Still in the Game
[youtube:28k9b979]i4uyHmK5AWk[/youtube:28k9b979]

Edgy MD
May 28 2015 08:11 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Think of what a damn scandal it must've been in 1966 for a teenager to sing, "We made it baby, and it happened for you!"

"While You See a Chance" was WAY overplayed in 1981, but I never got sick of it, and maybe privately appreciated that it knocked the then-freshly martyred John Lennon off the airwaves as the one token old sixties British rock guy the AM pop stations would play in between heavy rotation "Endless Love" and "Celebraton" spins.

I still haven't gotten sick of it, and it got my vote. I was surprised to hear he used the same collaborators, co-writer, producers, etc. he was using in his mid-to-late eighties run. I tend to think everybody re-invented themselves when MTV went big in 1983. But he did a few years earlier.

Edgy MD
May 28 2015 09:00 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Was "Don't You Know What the Night Can Do?" originally commissioned as a Michelob commercial?

John Cougar Lunchbucket
May 28 2015 09:07 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

I knew nothing of Blind Faith (other than they had an album with a naked girl on an album cover), and only a little Traffic when I heard a radio interview with Winwood at the Arc of a Diver release (December 1980).

At that time I remember being impressed that a guy could write all the songs, and play all the instruments on a record. Looking back, the production (also Steve's) was the real innovation as for better or worse pop would owe a lot to the synthy clean sounds and approach of that ARC record for a decade. There's no Phil Collins without Steve!

Yes, Steve Winwood invented the 80s, and went and ruined them too by being one of those "Night Belongs to Michelob" artists who would earn Neil Young's wrath and make all those aging Brit rockers-turned-pop-artists look lame and deserving of their own irrelevancy by the alterna-rockers of the 1990s.

Other stuff I associate with Steve Winwood:
--There was a jukebox someplace I used to hang out whose selection card called the song "While You Can See a Chance"
--"Higher Love" was one of those songs I heard a lot back when I was invited to weddings, some of the couples are still married
--Freedom Overspill sounds the most like a Traffic track of those here

I'm still not sure how I'll vote, but probably for Arc of a Diver, being the albumy-est of the singles.

John Cougar Lunchbucket
May 28 2015 09:09 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Edgy MD wrote:
Was "Don't You Know What the Night Can Do?" originally commissioned as a Michelob commercial?


Yes, one of the things inspiring this poll was an article I read recently on that very topic. The writer has a different perspective on the coolness of this thing than I did!

[url]https://medium.com/@mrshl/the-night-belongs-to-michelob-df97292a817b

MFS62
May 28 2015 10:28 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Roll With It.
When I first saw that video, I wanted to find that place, get out the floor and dance.
I still do.

Later

Fman99
May 28 2015 10:35 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

These songs all suck. I am a big Traffic and Blind Faith fan but Steve Winwood spent the 1980's eating David Bowie's creamy white English asshole.

Edgy MD
May 28 2015 10:39 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote:
Edgy MD wrote:
Was "Don't You Know What the Night Can Do?" originally commissioned as a Michelob commercial?


Yes, one of the things inspiring this poll was an article I read recently on that very topic. The writer has a different perspective on the coolness of this thing than I did!

[url]https://medium.com/@mrshl/the-night-belongs-to-michelob-df97292a817b

Oh, my. Anybody who prefers Laura Branigan’s “Self Control” to Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour” has a hidden childhood trauma he hasn't confronted.

These seminal beer ads were all about 80s style. Synth pads. Cavernous drum fills. Gorgeous, multi-layered, effects-ridden guitar leads. So I’m not sure why they built commercials around Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra songs.

Because teenage drunkos need to believe we are being grown-up and sophisticated, dummy.

sharpie
May 28 2015 11:52 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

These songs all suck. I am a big Traffic and Blind Faith fan but Steve Winwood spent the 1980's eating David Bowie's creamy white English asshole.


What FMan said.

cooby
May 28 2015 11:55 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

I knew nothing of Blind Faith (other than they had an album with a naked girl on an album cover), and only a little Traffic when I heard a radio interview with Winwood at the Arc of a Diver release (December 1980).

At that time I remember being impressed that a guy could write all the songs, and play all the instruments on a record. Looking back, the production (also Steve's) was the real innovation as for better or worse pop would owe a lot to the synthy clean sounds and approach of that ARC record for a decade. There's no Phil Collins without Steve!

Yes, Steve Winwood invented the 80s, and went and ruined them too by being one of those "Night Belongs to Michelob" artists who would earn Neil Young's wrath and make all those aging Brit rockers-turned-pop-artists look lame and deserving of their own irrelevancy by the alterna-rockers of the 1990s.

Other stuff I associate with Steve Winwood:
--There was a jukebox someplace I used to hang out whose selection card called the song "While You Can See a Chance"
--"Higher Love" was one of those songs I heard a lot back when I was invited to weddings, some of the couples are still married
--Freedom Overspill sounds the most like a Traffic track of those here

I'm still not sure how I'll vote, but probably for Arc of a Diver, being the albumy-est of the singles.

Make that a naked little girl. Creepy. But Blind Faith had some great songs

I once read an article about Stevie Winwood that mentioned he was wearing a Mets sweatshirt.

John Cougar Lunchbucket
May 28 2015 11:57 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

sharpie wrote:
These songs all suck. I am a big Traffic and Blind Faith fan but Steve Winwood spent the 1980's eating David Bowie's creamy white English asshole.


What FMan said.


Well then you better vote for one or wind up with a tape that has all of them.

Mets – Willets Point
May 28 2015 12:07 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

I went with "Higher Love." I like the way it builds and it sounded cool at the time. The other songs seem like variations on a theme that I got bored with quickly. I guess that theme was introduced by "While You See A Chance," but I wasn't familiar with that until after "Higher Love." So there.

sharpie
May 28 2015 12:08 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

I voted for "Back in the High Life" tho' I don't need to ever hear it again.

Edgy MD
May 28 2015 12:17 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Back in Todd Rundgren's day, you'd hear of a guy doing all the writing, singing, playing, production on his own album, you'd think, "God, he must be some kind of genius."

By the late 90s, you'd hear of a guy doing all the writing, singing, playing, production on his own album, you'd think, "God, he must be broke."

smg58
May 28 2015 01:52 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

"While You See a Chance" has aged very well. I'm not sure if you can say that about any of the other songs here.

John Cougar Lunchbucket
May 28 2015 02:07 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

His rock n' roll has put on weight -- and the beat? It goes on.

HahnSolo
Jun 02 2015 06:56 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

I picked the semi-schmaltzy Higher Love (Chaka Khan!) over Arc of a Diver, which I thought might have been my choice.

But the star of those videos is the fan blowing Stevie's hair back in Valerie.

Frayed Knot
Jun 02 2015 07:21 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Stevie Winwood is sneaky young (just turned 67 in May) considering his era and contemporaries, but that's what happens when you start out as a teenager.
See also Wonder, Stevie who turned 65 in the last few weeks.



I remember listening to and liking 'Arc of a Diver' back when it first came out although haven't thought about it much in many years. Going with the title track in this poll.
One legacy of this album was that it served as the first pebble in the avalanche of '60s/'70s era artists getting recognition (including Grammys and stuff) for their later in life stuff even though such accolades were more an acknowledgement that the Grammy awards were ignoring their music the first time around than for the greatness of their current career. More like a lifetime achievement award iow without really calling it that. Santana & Steely Dan were to get these later on and I'm sure others as well that I'm not currently recalling.

Edgy MD
Jun 02 2015 07:56 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

HahnSolo wrote:
I picked the semi-schmaltzy Higher Love (Chaka Khan!) over Arc of a Diver, which I thought might have been my choice.

But the star of those videos is the fan blowing Stevie's hair back in Valerie.

Well noted. Chaka's vocals and arrangements were a big deal on that track.

batmagadanleadoff
Jun 03 2015 03:30 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Something off the Arc of a Diver album, which was Winwood's first '80's album and therefore, Winwood's least 80's sounding album, if not by much. By the time the Mets were taking no names and no prisoners, Winwood's 80's groove was full on --- every signal in Winwood's sound sounded like it was coming out of a computer. Yeah, him and everybody else.

Put me down for Arc of a Diver. I'd consider Spanish Dancer if only it was an option.

[youtube]50V9P4yT2bE[/youtube]

Ashie62
Jun 03 2015 03:32 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

sharpie wrote:
These songs all suck. I am a big Traffic and Blind Faith fan but Steve Winwood spent the 1980's eating David Bowie's creamy white English asshole.


What FMan said.


What both said. Stevie was flat out bo-ring.

batmagadanleadoff
Jun 03 2015 03:38 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Anybody here ever listen to Winwood's recordings with "The Powerhouse"?

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr
Jun 03 2015 11:15 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

I have a weird weakness for "Valerie." And the memory of the hair-fan just may sustain me like a humor-coconut-water-reserve on that desert island.

But for all its eightiesness, "Higher Love" may just be the [crossout:3fcq8eos]least painful alternative among all these watered-down, shit-stained synthjingles[/crossout:3fcq8eos] best song here, songcraftwise. And-- more importantly-- Chaka, though.

G-Fafif
Jun 04 2015 07:59 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

In the runup to the '88 NLCS, WPLJ created "Roll Over L.A." to the tune of "Roll With It". I still Mets up the chorus when I hear the original.

But "Higher Love" got my vote here.

dgwphotography
Jun 04 2015 08:22 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Roll With It. Out of all of these, it seems to be the least over synthesized, and I love me a horn section.

G-Fafif
Jun 04 2015 04:55 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Honorable mention to "Valerie," a minor hit in 1982 and a remixed major hit in 1987 ("so cool/she was like/jazz on a summer's day" was a lyric that hit home for me when it was all over the radio that fall).

The second-chance hit is always a strange phenomenon, particularly if you caught it the first time around and you're thinking, "Why are they playing that so much again when they never played it that much in the first place?" The Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited, Chris DeBurgh's "Lady In Red" and UB40's "Red Red Wine" come to mind in that realm as well.

Edgy MD
Jun 05 2015 07:39 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Hall & Oates "Family Man" had a stronger second run as a remix. Bruce Springsteen's "57 Channels and There's Nothing On" was considered boring by radio programmers, until somebody put together a second mix custom-built for summertime boomboxes. Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" was born to be hit, but wasn't in the United States until somebody got the idea to add some English-language narration.

"Lady in Red" stands with Benny Mardones' "Into the Night" as ballads that get second (and third and more) winds by returning every spring as official prom song selections (not to mention heavy wedding rotation). The eighties incredibly both began and ended with "Into the Night" in the top 20, which doesn't really speak well of the eighties, to my thinking.

Frayed Knot
Jun 05 2015 07:59 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

The version of S&G's 'Sounds of Silence' that is so familiar to all now was actually a re-mixed and re-released version.
Originally done for the album WEDNESDAY MORNING 3 AM it went nowhere as a single (or as an album) leading to the two going separate ways (Paul headed for England). Re-done with drums and electric guitars added, reportedly without either S or G's knowledge, it was re-released and became a hit which led to the duo's reunion and a couple of pretty good albums to follow.

Edgy MD
Jun 05 2015 08:47 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Good one. Probably didn't get two distinct runs on the charts though.

I never quite realized what relaunched "Red, Red, Wine." "500 Miles" got a second wind from its use in "Benny and Joon," but it took me a bit to figure that one out too. I'm pretty sure both at least kissed the outer edges of the top 200 the first time around though.

Edgy MD
Jun 05 2015 09:29 AM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

John Cougar Lunchbucket
Jun 05 2015 08:32 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

We used to do that yes - who routine at the bus stop. Funny comic

RealityChuck
Jun 09 2015 01:14 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Winwood's solo career was a disappointment after his work with Traffic (and, to some degree, Blind Faith), but I went with "Arc of a Diver," since it was cowritten by one of my musical heroes, Vivian Stanshall. He's the lead singer. (You may also recognize the person who introduces them.)

[youtube:4ddo2iy8]qKXsrWrmbAg[/youtube:4ddo2iy8]

Edgy MD
Jun 09 2015 06:43 PM
Re: Desert Island for the Win...

Chaka puts "HL" up on top.