The tell tale sign of growing older can be seen in the aging of the musicians 
we listen to. This is the case with Steve Winwood who turned sixty this past May. I was about sixteen when I first heard of Steve Winwood. A friend of mine had a Blind Faith album that I loved to listen to. This led me to some of Winwood’s earlier recordings with The Spencer Davis Group and the classic “Gimme Some Lovin’” which has appeared in numerous movie soundtracks over the years.
In the eighties Winwood pursued a solo career and his sound blended with the pop culture of that time. You could sit back and just mellow out to “While You See A Chance” and “The Finer Things” or dance to the sounds from “Roll With It” and “Higher Love“. One of my favorites of Winwood is “Back In The High Life Again” with it’s hint of mandolin playing throughout the song. In the late eighties and early ninties my musical tastes didn’t sway to far from hard rock and heavy metal so Winwood fell from my musical radar screen.
Over the past decade my musical tastes have diversified quite a bit. I have spread my eclectic wings to sample the goods from Rap (Toby Mac and KJ-52), and Country (although it’s mostly pop-country), to R&B and Big Band. Although my heart lives in the safe waters of hard crunching guitars, I have found some sonic pleasure in the dark waters of the less head-banging realm of music. This branching out has lead me to such music sensations as Duffy, John Fogerty, Mark Knopfler, and Josh Groban. Such is the sensation with my album review today.
Upon This Rawk 