Traffic
When The Eagle Flies

THE REVIEW

"When I was a young boy I lived for rock'n'roll; We spent our time playing gigs and travelling on the road; And we didn't have much money and the gigs were sometimes rough; Now I am a young man dressing in sparkling coloured clothes; A country house and sixty acres are a heavy load".

That's how Steve Winwood sings, new owner of 60 acres in Gloucestershire, in "Memories of a Rock'n'Rolla". It's '74, the "fabulous '60s" are long gone, and gentrification is advancing: Traffic is at its farewell, once again a quartet, without the cumbersome rhythm section of Muscle Shoals and with Jamaican Rosko Gee on bass. But surprisingly, the farewell album does not follow the path of complacent indolence undertaken with "Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory" and "On The Road", offering more radio-friendly tracks where finally Winwood's splendid voice ranges freely as it did in the times of "John Barleycorn Must Die".

The jazzy "Something New", for example, has, ironically given the title, the typical lightness of their sixties tracks, just as, on the other extreme, the sinister "Graveyard People" somewhat recalls the psychedelic nightmare of "50000 Headmen". Nonetheless, there are more extended tracks, in the most typical tradition of Late Period Traffic: the jam session here is "Dream Gerrard", built on a hypnotic synth riff and sudden dramatic gusts of mellotron over which Winwood on piano and Wood on sax wah-wah embroider two interesting solos, the first romantic, the second slyly inviting. The incomprehensible lyrics, evoking the dream world of the romantic poet Gerard de Nerval who saw dreams as a second life, is the work of, and how to be surprised, Vivian Stanshall, the eccentric leader of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, a dadaist pride of swinging London. The track, even if it follows a bit the line of "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys", is remarkable and probably deserves the prize of best together with the other mid-tempo "Walking In The Wind". The title track, finally, although marked by a pretentious ecological text by Capaldi, is a perfect closing track that lulls us on a soft carpet of percussion, organ, and piano towards the end of a beautiful adventure.

P.S.: On the cover, there's a nice drawing of the group based on a photo in which the African percussionist Rebop is still present, who, however, apparently from the credits, never participated in the album recordings.