John Barleycorn Must Die

Not only is this my favourite traffic recording, its one of my favourite recordings of all time...I could actually do without the bonus tracks.

Back in the 70s, when 20 year old musicians were being hailed as geniuses every week, many of those geniuses let the accolades go to their head. (How could they not--treated as royalty, they did what royalty has often done, believe they were better than others and everything they produced was remarkable, including their excrement.) Steve Winwood was a talented musician and songwriter who created some of the most memorable rock of his era. He teamed up some other well-respected geniuses and produced much fine, and some mediocre, material. This CD is full of both.

When I played this LP, side 1 was the only side I listened to. 3 great songs, well blended in a delightful sequence, made it one of my favorites. I had not heard side 2 in a long time. Well, now I remember why. While Winwood could certainly play an astoundingly good piano, he had a tendency to noodle along without going anywhere. There is a lot of boredom on side 2. John Barleycorn, the much praised title track, sounded pretentious and lame to me then; today, with another 40 years of listening to British folk music under my belt, it sounds worse. This kind of music has been performed by a number of staggeringly talented musicians, and I'd rather hear any of them do it.

When I write these, I try to imagine what you, the reader, might be looking for. After all, even Dave Marsh's opinions are just that, opinions. So, my opinion is that this CD, well remastered, has 3 incredibly fine songs on it, 2 toothless "extra tracks" to make it selllable, and 3 lesser songs on it that I will gladly live without.

I had not heard those opening riffs to Glad in many years, but the same smile I felt back then reappeared instantly. That is a good song!

As I publish this, I note that of 42 reviews, there are only 4 and 5 star reviews. That means something.....Forget the history lessons and who did what when stuff. Either it's a good LP or it ain't. It is!

In the telling, Traffic was this great band with two front-men, Steve Winwood and Dave Mason, which fell apart over egos and ambition and then reformed, without Mason, after Winwood's Blind Faith excursion crashed and burned.

In reality, the Winwood-Mason group was really a different band, a fine band, but far less ambitious and innovative than the band that was born on "John Barleycorn Must Die." Losing Dave Mason didn't deplete Traffic; it freed the band from the strictures of its previous incarnation as a generator of hit singles and allowed the fruitful collaboration among Winwood, Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi to reach its full apogee. "John Barleycorn" doesn't sound anything like the Traffic that did songs like "Feelin' Alright" or "Heaven is in Your Mind."

Nor is this version of Traffic -- which continued through the remainder of its career -- a "jam band" in the sense that those words now signify. The compositions on "John Barleycorn..." as well as on subsequent classics like "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" are highly structured. Built into that structure were opportunities to perform solos. Both were multi-instrumentalists, so for some songs that means Winwood soloing on organ, guitar and piano, and Wood on flute and saxophone. Or some combination thereof. Both were virtuosos whose solos had much more to say, musically, than 95 percent of rock instrumentalists. And you couldn't pin them down. Their muse pulled them in many directions: Rock, folk, jazz, R&B and various subgenres. What Capaldi provides here and would blossom later into a signature quality was an incredible suppleness of rhythm. He could lay down a fat groove or a solid 4/4, or he could swing lightly, or he could click away in an ethereal mist. Whatever the song needed. Rhythmic adventurousness was Traffic's foundation beginning with this album.

The only drawback I find to "John Barleycorn..." is a wish they had gone further. Clearly, this group was awaiting an African drummer -- you can almost hear it on some of the tracks. Of course, that drummer arrived in time for the next Traffic album, "Welcome to the Canteen," and is one of the factors in making the next three Traffic albums the unheralded classics that they are.

As for the individual songs -- I can't think of a better suite than the three songs that made up the original Side 1 of this disk: "Glad, "Freedom Rider" and "Empty Pages." Then you've got the wondrous title song, which was the centerpiece of side 2. "Stranger to Himself" is an R&B style tune, in the mode of the previous incarnation's great final single, "Shanghai Noodle Factory/Medicated Goo." It's just a wonderful slab of music that you'll play a long time before getting tired of it.

The album itself is fantastic. A genuine classic.

The problem is in the totally crappy re-mastering job. There is audible dropout at the beginning of "Glad" on the left channel, which eventually straightens out after a few seconds, but ruins the song. "Empty Pages" is really bad. It has a wow/flutter effect throughout that might have been in the original recording, but I doubt it. It basically sounds like cassette tapes used to sound when they would get old and worn out, creating a fluttering sound quality.

I suspect the master tapes have gone bad here in spots, but it could just be my system. I listen on headphones, which might make me more sensitive to flaws. But, I think anyone thinking of this purchase might want to test a track via download before investing in the entire CD.

This is a truly a masterpiece, and the re-mastered tracks sound great. But one star off for the bonus tracks, especially for the one stuck in the middle. I'm not a big fan of bonus tracks in general; they rarely add to the experience, but at least stick em at the end where they can be properly ignored. The liner notes for the re-issue give a clue to their cluelessness: "Along with Fairport Conventions Liege and Leif, John Barleycorn Must Die stands as a pivotal statement in late 60's/early 70's British folk rock music". Huh? Did the person who wrote that even listen to anything besides the title track???