WINWOOD PLAYING THE ‘HIGH LIFE’ AT UNIVERSAL

Every season seems to bring forth a new sound track for yuppie living--usually an album from someone with enough of a past to stir memories among those of voting age and beyond, but also with enough of a beat to keep pop’s oldsters from falling asleep behind the wheels of their sports cars.

This year the yuppie sound track of choice is Steve Winwood’s “Back in the High Life,” which was run through in its eight-song entirety when the singer opened a three-night stand at the Universal Amphitheatre on Saturday.

Unlike a few of the other albums that have filled that bill in the past, “High Life” is an entirely respectable--if not entirely remarkable--effort, strong enough to hold its own against the few blasts-from-the-past he trotted out.

Of course, good music and a good track record alone are not enough to take an album to the top of the charts, and defining what it is that’s appealing about Winwood’s image is difficult to pin down. It may be that his dispassionate demeanor--especially combined with his reputation for releasing albums about every four years and going as long as a decade between tours--somehow implies the privilege and allure of leisure time .

If Winwood doesn’t spend a lot of time extolling the virtues of the work ethic, though, he does celebrate other values with a measure of thoughtfulness.

The classy, light funk that he so often employs might come off as hopelessly white-bread if both the lyrics and music weren’t so deeply infused with a sense of awe and wonder and, certainly, honest romanticism.

Likewise, while Winwood rarely deigned to communicate with the audience at Universal (or interact with the excellent eight-piece backing band, for that matter), he seemed involved enough with his work to avoid coming off as aloof.

And while there’s really no objective reason why Winwood’s voice should sound as soulful as it does, it all comes out nonetheless as something authentic and heartfelt.

Having played all of the instruments on some past albums and most of them on “High Life,” Winwood was predictably the star of the show instrumentally as well as vocally, though most often he just sang at center stage, shirt fashionably untucked, with no keys or strings at hand.

Given how slick and tight Winwood’s solo stuff is, there existed a distinct possibility that the slightly messier hits he had with the Spencer Davis Group as a teen in 1967 (“I’m a Man” and “Gimme Some Lovin’ ”) might not rub right near the end of the show.

Happily, these sounded as handsome but unsanitized as the rest of the lot, and--along with the one Traffic number (a solo “High-Heeled Boys”)--provided more reason for rejoicing his overdue stage return, verily, all the way unto the sports car in the parking lot.

Winwood is also scheduled to play the Pacific Amphitheatre on Friday.