Another Traffic Jam

Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi ran into an unexpected road block when they tried to resurrect Traffic after 20 years: They didn’t have the rights to use the name of the rock band they founded.

Chris Blackwell’s Island Records U.K. owned the moniker.

“When we were 19 or 20, he got us to sign a piece of paper, which we didn’t believe existed,” Winwood said. “He faxed copies to everyone.”

So, after Winwood and Capaldi had completed a Traffic comeback album this year for Virgin Records (for which Winwood records), the lawyers were called in. “It was more loaded in his (Blackwell’s) favor than ours. They played hardball,” Winwood said, and Traffic bought its name from Island.

A spokesman for Blackwell said the agreement with Traffic prohibits him from commenting; however, Island is releasing a box set of Winwood material--from 1964-91, including Traffic stuff--later this year.

The legalities over the name delayed the release of Traffic’s new album, “Far From Home,” and thus slowed momentum for the band’s current concert tour. In a summer dominated by such veteran acts as the Eagles, Barbra Streisand and the Rolling Stones returning to touring after lengthy absences, the Traffic trek seems to have hit a few bumps in the road. Industry observers report that Traffic tickets have been less-than-hot items in many major markets.

Nonetheless, Winwood and Capaldi’s enthusiasm for the venture is palpable--in an interview, during a band rehearsal and onstage opening night in Minneapolis, where Traffic sounded better than ever.

The musicianship is superior and Winwood, one of rock’s most soulful singers, is impassioned in his singing and guitar and keyboard playing.

Just why did Winwood--who had his share of solo success in the 1980s with “While You See a Chance,” “Higher Love” and “Roll With It”--decide to direct Traffic again?

“We’ve been talking about it for a while,” he said. “It wasn’t a financial consideration. It seemed a natural progression. I felt to a certain extent that my music was lacking some of the ragged edges that the Traffic music has in it.

“The desire was to write in a way that paid no lip service to any kind of market force. The only parameters we had were. . . .”

“Freedom,” Capaldi interjected. “With Traffic, you don’t have to preconceive where you’re going. That’s the beauty of it.”

Winwood denies the speculation that he revived Traffic because his solo career has been floundering after two consecutive slow-selling albums. “We have no idea that Traffic is going to be any more successful than my solo albums,” he said. “No one has a crystal ball.”

Multi-instrumentalist Winwood, 46, and lyricist-drummer Capaldi, 49, made “Far From Home” in much the same way they made the old Traffic albums: They repaired to a farmhouse in Ireland and jammed. But this time they were without Traffic flutist and saxophonist Chris Wood, who died in 1983.

*

So Winwood used electronic samples for the reeds and woodwind parts. For the tour, he and Capaldi hired four sidemen, including bassist Rosko Gee, who played with the 1974 incarnation of Traffic, and saxophonist-flutist-keyboardist Randall Bramblett, who has accompanied Winwood on his solo tours.

Why wasn’t Dave Mason, Traffic’s founding guitarist, involved?

Even though Traffic is prominent on his resume, he played with the band for only one year and never toured the States with Traffic.

“Dave was never cut out to be in a group,” Winwood said, despite the fact that Mason has joined the latest incarnation of Fleetwood Mac. “He’s much more of a solo artist, we felt, and he did some great solo work.”

“Far From Home” is full of the kind of long-winded rock-blues-soul-jazz-folk jams that made Traffic a staple on FM radio from ’67 to ’74. Winwood said he and Capaldi did not set out to make a “retro album that sounded like it was made in the ‘60s.” They did meet with hot producer Don Was but decided to work on their own.

“Because we brought in an album that sounds like it was made in the 1990s people have a little bit of trouble with that,” Capaldi said. “The tradition of the old stuff is still there. I don’t feel we’ve made sort of a glossy ‘90s pop album. It’s pieces of music rather than radio songs.”

In concert, the new songs fit in with the old numbers that dominate the show: “Medicated Goo,” “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys,” “Glad,” “Freedom Rider,” “Empty Pages,” “John Barleycorn,” among others.

At the moment, Winwood and Capaldi seem to be drowning in a sea of joy. But they don’t know what the future holds for Traffic. Said Capaldi: “With Traffic, it’s like jumping into the ocean without a ticket and a boat and a route while crossing the Atlantic.”

* Traffic plays Monday at the Embarcadero Marina Park South, San Diego, (619) 570-1222, 7 p.m., (tickets $20 - $35); Tuesday at the Pond of Anaheim, (714) 704-2400, 8 p.m. ($23.50-$65); Thursday through next Saturday at the Universal Amphitheatre, Universal City, (818) 980-9421, 8:15 p.m. ($27.50-$62.50); June 12 at the Santa Barbara County Bowl, (805) 568-2695, 7 p.m. ($25-$32.50), and June 16 at the Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion, Devore, (909) 886-8742, 8 p.m. ($23.50 - $26.50).