02/07/2022
ON THIS DATE (52 YEARS AGO)
July 1, 1970 - Traffic: John Barleycorn Must Die is released.
# ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 5/5
# Allmusic 4.5/5 stars
# Record Mirror (see original review below)
# Rolling Stone (see original review below)
John Barleycorn Must Die is the fourth album by Traffic, released on July 1, 1970. It reached #5 on the Billboard 200 Top LP's chart.
In late 1968, Traffic disbanded, guitarist Dave Mason having left the group for the second time prior to the completion of the Traffic album. In 1969, Steve Winwood joined the supergroup Blind Faith, while drummer and lyricist Jim Capaldi and woodwinds player Chris Wood turned to session work, Wood also joining Blind Faith's drummer Ginger Baker in his post-Blind Faith group for their first album.
In the beginning of 1970, after the demise of Blind Faith, the band having lasted barely six months, Winwood returned to the studio ostensibly to make his first solo album, originally to be titled Mad Shadows. He recorded two tracks with producer Guy Stevens, "Stranger to Himself" and "Every Mother's Son", but yearned for like-minded musicians to accompany. Inviting Wood and Capaldi to join him, Winwood's solo album became the reunion of Traffic, and a re-launch of the band's career.
Although John Barleycorn Must Die was originally intended as Steve Winwood's post-Blind Faith solo debut, Winwood and producer/label head Chris Blackwell first drafted Jim Capaldi to provide lyrics, and then Chris Wood dropped by to add his familiar reeds, and almost by accident, Traffic was reborn.
This was a different, and better, Traffic than the ill-fated quartet lineup with Dave Mason, which never entirely settled on an artistic direction. The sound of John Barleycorn Must Die, on the other hand, remained the template for the rest of the reunited band's career--long, organically developed songs with a subtle jazz-rock feel, powered by Capaldi's percussion and Winwood's organ. "John Barleycorn," a traditional English folk song about the process of brewing ale (not, as the liner notes mistakenly claim, a call for temperance), here becomes a pastoral reverie carried along by flute and acoustic guitar, and proves to be the record's highlight. However, the quality of the other songs, particularly the instrumental opener, "Glad," and the outstanding ballad "Empty Pages," is nearly as high.
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ORIGINAL LINER NOTES
Between the years of 1900 and 1910, Cecil Sharpe collected a number of songs, JOHN BARLEYCORN among them. The many versions of this song are said to have come from Oxfordshire, Sussex, Hampshire, Surrey and Somerset, and there are estimated to be between 100 and 140 versions. The Earliest known copy is of the age of James 1st in the Pepoysian collection 1465 printed in black letter by H. Gorson (1607-1641). The popular interpretation is the effort of the people to give up the alcohol distilled from barley but in the last verse: “And little Sir John with his nut brown bowl, And his brandy in the glass, And little Sir John with his nut brown bowl, Proved the strongest man at last…”
but there are many other interpretations.
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ORIGINAL MELODY MAKER REVIEW, July 25, 1970
By Len Goddard
TRAFFIC: John Barleycorn Must Die (Island ILPS 9116) With albums like this, it's getting very difficult to criticise Island for anything. This is the best LP Traffic have done and it proves that nothing was lost during their nomadic wanderings. The gap left by Dave Mason has been neatly filled by Winwood's excellent acoustic guitar work. Six tracks of solid, inspired and melodic tunes in a nice combination of rock and traditional flavouring. I hated everything they did except their LP 'Traffic', which was superb. This, however, tops that. The title track is glorious. I hope Winwood gets some lead in his feet and stays put for a while.L.G.
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ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW
NOTE: Dave Mason's "Alone Together is also reviewed in this piece)
At best, records are frozen instants of music. The ultimate musical experience is always live. It's a rare artist who does not reveal much of himself and his work by the way he attacks the task of playing it, and you have to be there to know what it means. Some few records manage to bridge the gap, simply by overpowering the barriers, storming the gates of electronic distance and repetition with sheer unified energy. The rest are ... words and music.
So we have before us two inexorably linked albums: John Barleycorn Must Die by Traffic, a trio now, continuing their group saga, and Alone Together with Dave Mason, formerly one-quarter of Traffic, off on his own trip. They're both good albums, careful, well-played, occasionally brilliant, well-conceived, but neither of them breaks its vinyl bonds and soars.
Take Traffic. "Glad," the instrumental cut which opens the album, has some glorious piano work by Steve Winwood and some inventive, imaginative sax playing by Chris Wood. It's all so perfect, so exquisite and so dull. "Freedom Rider" is much more like it. Wood's flute and Winwood's piano are both extraordinary, and Jim Capaldi's drumming is fine, very sympathetic, but ... if this train is moving, why isn't the scenery changing?
The best cut on the album is probably the title tune, a traditional English ballad arranged by Winwood for acoustic guitar and flute. Wood's flute is again exceptional, delicate and ornate, and Steve sings the song just right, with an admirable sense of restraint and simplicity. Simple, but it works.
Winwood's two virtuoso cuts, "Stranger To Himself" and "Every Mother's Son," are equally satisfying. Jim Capaldi's lyrics are almost perfect, and Winwood's singing is just stunning, lean and clear. And he is a good virtuoso—the guitar on "Stranger" and the organ on "Every Mother's Son" are both powerful and moving. But that kind of control-board ma********on can take the music only so far. Steve Winwood may be the best at it that there is, but it still isn't a very rewarding art form.
Perhaps part of the problem is my high expectations of any Traffic album. This is a good album of rock and roll music, featuring the best rock and roll woodwind player anywhere and one of the best singers, and maybe the trio is still just getting together again, feeling each other out. Traffic, after all, was a light-year jump from Mr. Fantasy; maybe the next album will soar again.
In terms of expectations, Alone Together is much better. Mason's talent as a song writer remains undiminished, and his easy, fluid voice, long in Winwood's giant shadow, is used to maximum effect.
This is, of course, the marbled LP, a brilliant burst of color spinning on the turntable, the grooves barely discernable so the needle seems to be floating across the record. Maybe the next step could be a little cartoon around the edge of the record, like those flip-the-pages funnies, or a slow inward spiral so you could be literally hypnotized by the record.
The music is vintage Mason, veering here and there towards commercialism but never quite getting there, slick but not offensive. Falling in line with the rest of Great Britain, Mason chose old Delaney and Bonnie sidemen for the session, including Leon Russell, Jim Keltner, Carl Radle and Rita Coolidge, plus old Mother Don Preston. Russell, as always, is much in evidence, and his piano (if it is him—the album doesn't say and we have only internal evidence), particularly on "Sad and Deep As You," is masterful.
The high point of the album is clearly "Look at You Look at Me," a song Mason wrote with Trafficker Jim Capaldi, whose tight, urgent drumming on the cut moves the song along with discretion and skill. Mason's singing is simply superb. The other exceptional cuts are "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave" (Mason is not, between you and me, a great song titlist), which features the best wah-wah guitar since Clapton's initial exposition on "Tales of Brave Ulysses"; and "World in Changes," with Mason's deceptively simple lyrics pulled along by some brilliant organ work.
High commercial potential on the album is represented by "Only You Know and I Know," which has a ricky-ticky rhythm reminiscent of "You Can All Join In." It's really a trivial song (like others on the album, particularly "Watin' On You" and "Just A Song"), but it will sound great on a tinny AM radio at 60 miles an hour.
But the Mason album, too, is more potential than realization. It too is, in a very real sense, flawless, but, as Paul McCartney is beginning to learn, great muisc is much better than flawless music. (RS 65)
~ Jon Carroll (September 3, 1970)
TRACKS:
All songs written by Steve Winwood/Jim Capaldi unless noted.
Side one
1. "Glad" (Winwood) - 6:32
2. "Freedom Rider" - 6:20
3. "Empty Pages" - 4:47
Side two
1. "Stranger To Himself" - 4:02
2. "John Barleycorn" (traditional-arr. Winwood) - 6:20
3. "Every Mother's Son" - 7:05
