Revolutions: The Very Best Of Steve Winwood [Standard Edition] [Original recording remastered]

Revolutions - The Very Best Of Steve Winwood features sixteen tracks from a career dating back to the Spencer Davis Group period up to the present. As such it can only scratch the surface of a stellar career. However the tracks are well chosen and the selection is as good as you could get on a single cd.

My favourite period of Steve Winwood's career was his time with the Spencer Davis Group. This is represented by four tracks: Keep On Running,Somebody Help Me,Gimme Some Lovin' and I'm A Man. The digital remastering has these tracks sounding better than ever and breathes new life into these classic songs.

The collection on this cd then rolls on through the Traffic, Blind Faith and solo periods. This is a collection to enjoy. Highly recommended to all Steve Winwood fans and devotees of great music.

When I saw this cd advertised I wasn't too sure about buying it, but after I played it for the first time I was really pleased that I decided to get it. It has a good mix of Steve's time with the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith and his solo work. The last track with Eric Clapton "Dirty City" is particularly good and the 2010 "Spanish Dancer" blends so well with this collection. Every Steve Winwood fan should have this album.

Yes I know true fans are going to complain that this is a cursory sweep across a huge career; a musical attempt to squeeze a quart into a pint point; a "Very best of" that throws out the proverbial "baby out with the bathwater"; which misses X and what about Y and then of course there is the absence of Z my obscure personal favourite.....

Ok let's move on because doubts and complaints disappear from view as soon as you listen to THAT VOICE. It starts on "Keep on Running", the sound of the 15-year-old boy wonder of British 60s Rhythm and blues fronting the mighty Spencer Davis Group, the man who later played organ on Joe Cocker's album "With a Little Help from My Friends", recorded with Hendrix the earth shaking "Voodoo Chile", was a session musician on Lou Reed's best album "Berlin" and someone who just happened to play with those consummate cosmic "jammers" The Grateful Dead and Delta bluesman Howlin Wolf amongst a galaxy of others.

Steve Winwood has earned respect and for those who want to delve even deeper there is the simultaneous release of the gargantuan 4 disc "Deluxe Edition" of "Revolutions" where you can begin to explore the wonders of Spencer Davis (led by one of our great Welsh legends from Bonymaen), Traffic, Blind Faith and his later more pop orientated solo career. This short but punchy "best of" is one of those that are nice to just put on the CD player or in the car to listen to these wonderful tracks steeped in history without swapping between all the albums. It covers a career which spans five decades from a man who invented white "blue eyed soul" and much more besides. Listen to the visceral power of "I'm a man" with Spencer Davis firing on all cylinders and the swirling Hammond keyboards and Winwood's voice packing a punch as big as Mike Tyson. Play once again the brilliant "Gimme some lovin" where the Spencer Davis Group out "Motowned" many of the great songs coming out of the Motor City and note how you will need to have your feet surgically nailed to the floor not to move to the great Mod classic "Keep on Running".

As Winwood develops in this brief resume of his musical journey we see the influence he casts. Traffic's "John Barleycorn must die" and "Dear Mr Fantasy" is the template for the revival of Paul Weller's career in his "Wild Wood" phase, "Paper Sun" is one of the greatest pieces of English psychedelia/acid rock this side of Jerry Garcia's guitar, Blind Faith's "Can't find my way home" sees the invention of a key supergroup while "Valerie" is the staple song of every bad club singer in south Wales and still superb.

Of course this album is an overture to the main opera and at best is a useful introduction. It is a point of entry into a great career that might just lead you to purchase an early but rare Spencer Davis album, a new copy of the "The Low spark of high heeled boys" (a nod at this point to the great Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood) or probably Winwood's best solo effort "the Arc of a diver". Granted like Clapton the career of Steve Winwood never quite scaled the peaks that he climbed in the 1960s and with the end of Traffic and the onset of punk rock he had a very difficult decade through the 1970s. To his credit however he came back and as the BBC rightly state latterly reached a "pop maturity with a grace that eluded many of his contemporaries". In these times of economic chill and cuts, of oil spills and other tragedies why not start a new journey with this great singer? Enjoy it and "roll with it".