"Traffic Back at the Cottage"
Rolling Stone, March 19, 1970
After a thirteen-month hiatus, Traffic will jam again. The group's last album came out eighteen months ago and last January they officially diverged onto separate roads.
Steve Winwood went to Blind Faith and then to Air Force. Chris Wood did session work, a gig with Dr. John and then went to Air Force. Jim Capaldi spent six months with Dave Mason. Mason, who kept coming in and going out of Traffic, was last seen among the friends of Bonnie and Delaney and hasn't been mentioned, even conversationally, in the reformation of Traffic.
What this means for Blind Faith and Air Force is now the subject of dithered flurries at Stigwood Organization, which manages both groups. Air Force, a ten-man band revolving around Ginger Baker, will presumably be able to continue with replacements for Wood and Winwood. But with Eric Clapton off with Bonnie and Delaney, Baker involved with his own group and Winwood back in Traffic, it would appear that Rik Grech is the blind man led by the faithless.
Says Winwood on getting it back together with Taffic: "I was working on material for an album I was getting up for U.A. We had started recording and I asked Jim and Chris if they'd like to help. We did a couple of sessions together, had a good time, got to talking about things and mutually decided that Traffic ought to be given another chance. "We'd like to get back to concentrating on live gigs as soon as possible."
The tracks the three did for Winwood's United Artists album (which was to have been called Mad Shadows) will now be on their own album, due out on United Artists in the U.S. and on the Island in Britain in about two months. Meanwhile, they are back at the Berkshire cottage.
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