About Time [Expanded]

Rock star pedigrees don't get much more esteemed than that of former Spencer Davis Group/Traffic/Blind Faith singer/keyboardist Steve Winwood. Though Winwood gained enough fans with his massive '80s solo pop hits to garner a huge audience with little (if any) knowledge of his past, the long-time faithful will feel a kinship with the pared-down, newly energized feel of ABOUT TIME. For his first album released under his own imprint, Winwood keeps things direct and simple.
Though Winwood's previous solo album, 1997's JUNCTION SEVEN, was a much slicker affair, the roots of ABOUT TIME lay in the presence of the earlier album's guitarist Jose Neto and percussionist Walfredo Reyes, and particularly the JUNCTION SEVEN track "Got To Get Back To My Baby", which foreshadowed ABOUT TIME's Latin-influenced, heavily percussive direction. While Reyes's percolating beats breathe fresh life into Winwood's sound, one of the most important developments is that the keyboard wizard is tearing it up on the organ once again, just like back in the glory days of Traffic et al. The resultant stylistic paradigm comes off something like a modernized version of Santana with a considerably higher soul quotient, full of instrumental torque and affecting lyricism in equal measure.|