Traffic: John Barleycorn Must Die (1970)

We all know that by 1969, Traffic broke up. The album Last Exit was released by the record company basically consisting of leftovers, and non-album singles. Steve Winwood, of course teaming up with Eric Clapton (ex-Cream, John Mayall and Yardbirds, later of Derek & the Dominoes, and of course a hugely successful solo career), Ric Grech (ex-Family), and Ginger Baker (ex-Cream) and formed Blind Faith. After that band released their one and only album, and toured with it, they broke up.

Steve Winwood decided to embark on a solo career with the album title Mad Shadows in mind. Once he got Traffic members Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi to help in, he unintentionally reunited Traffic. Dave Mason was nowhere to be found, he was starting to embark on a solo career. And now that this was a new Traffic album, the album got a new title, John Barleycorn Must Die.

This time around, Traffic started exploring extended cuts, more emphasizing jams and a more progressive bent. “Glad” is the opening cut, with great organ and sax work. “Freedom Rider” is the first vocal cut, with flute and more extended passages, but never gets boring. “Empty Pages” is familiar to those who listen to FM rock. I really like the extended electric piano and organ solo, but the music is catchy enough where even radio programmers played it. “Stranger to Himself” was played entirely by Steve Winwood, which is the biggest evidence that John Barleycorn Must Die was originally intended to be Winwood’s solo album. It proved that Winwood was fully capable of every instrument he played. “John Barleycorn” was the band following what Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, and The Pentangle were doing: covering a traditional English folk song. A great acoustic piece with nice flute work, with lyrics steeped in pagan folklore. Apparently Chris Wood discovered a version of this song through a 1965 recording by the Watersons and decided to do a version of it. Martin Carthy (fixture of the English folk scene, and later a Steeleye Span member) happened to do a cover of this song with future Fairport Convention fiddler Dave Swarbrick on their 1967 album Byker Hill (I mentioned this because Carthy later married Norma Waterson, of The Watersons fames, and since both The Watersons and Martin Carthy had their version of “John Barleycorn”). The last song is “Every Mother’s Son”, which shows some soul influences, but Winwood also gave an extended organ solo.

It’s without a doubt that John Barleycorn Must Die, as well as their following studio effort, The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys represents Traffic at their peak, and no doubt I recommend both very highly.