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Robin Lynam

Steve Winwood
Nine Lives
(Columbia)
Latin percussion features prominently on Nine  Lives, as it did on Steve Winwood's last album, 2003's About  Time, but this time the effect is less like early Santana and altogether more in the vintage Traffic vein.
It's certainly the most satisfying showcase to date of all the various things Winwood does well, featuring soulful vocals, deft guitar work and his unmistakable touch on the Hammond organ,  on whose pedals he also supplies most of the bass parts.
Only the opening track, I'm Not Drowning, on which Winwood plays all the instruments, harks back to the slick multi-tracked one-man-band performances of Winwood's early  1980s solo work, and even that has a strong bluesy acoustic groove.
Otherwise the performances sound as though they were cut live by a band, and his regular road musicians, drummer Richard  Bailey and percussionist Karl  Vanden Bossche, feature on most  tracks.
The most prominent cameo  comes from Eric Clapton, with whom Winwood recently performed three sell-out gigs at Madison Square Garden, and he plays some aggressive lead over the last couple of minutes of Dirty City. An edited version of this has been released as a single, but it's the only track that sounds as though it really belongs on another record. Perhaps nearly 40 years after Blind Faith, they'll get around to making it.
Dirty City is by far the edgiest song. The others are all contented-sounding grooves, many of which hark back to the sound of John Barleycorn  Must Die or The Low Spark of  the High Heeled Boys. Many of the lyrics, which are of no great distinction, relate to spiritual concerns. But when Winwood's voice is in good shape, as it mostly is here, it doesn't greatly matter what he is singing. This is a strong return to form.



Steve Winwood