Traffic vs. Argent

The Dark Elf wrote: Mista-Gordie wrote: micky wrote: Low Spark of Trollish Forum Members... Traffic a bluesy band?  Not that there is a damn thing wrong with that.. but never really saw Traffic as that. The bands similarity IMO stops at the frontman, keyboard centric nature of the groups. Traffic was a very diverse group musically.. and jazz was at the heart of Traffic. I think you're mostly right, though it's undeniable that Winwood's style was also profoundly rooted in blues. Don't forget that we're talking about a guy who played with Muddy Waters and Howling' Wolf, among others.  And Jimi Hendrix as well. Nice organ contributions on Electric Ladyland.

Yep...

Moogtron III wrote: micky wrote: Low Spark of Trollish Forum Members... Traffic a bluesy band?  Not that there is a damn thing wrong with that.. but never really saw Traffic as that. The bands similarity IMO stops at the frontman, keyboard centric nature of the groups. Traffic was a very diverse group musically.. and jazz was at the heart of Traffic. I think songs like Dear Mr. Fantasy, No Time To Live, You Can All Join In, Pearly Queen, Stranger To Himself and Every Mother's Son have blues as the basis. I think blues was as important for Traffic as folk, jazz and rock. They had a nice mixture of styles, but blues was certainly one of them. On topic: haven't heard Argent yet so I cannot vote.

very true Marcel... never said it wasn't an influence.  I just said it wasn't accurate to call them A bluesy band. No more accurate than calling them a folk prog band as they were for years here... for .. a handful songs that were overtly folk prog. 

They threw everything into the mixing bowl. However most of those tracks were during the Dave Mason years.. once he left. Winwood's vocal stylyings were very much R&B.. musically..  Winwood had a thing for jazzy stuff and once Mason left that became much more pronounced once the musically type-A personality of Mason left the group.

In fact, even more than King Crimson, I see Traffic as the quintescential 'eclectic' prog group.  King Crimson shifted styles...  Traffic merged them and made a completely unique sound.


Edited by micky - February 08 2015 at 14:15

I'm actually surprised by this poll. I consider Argent to be much more proggy than Traffic. I like Traffic's detours into jazz territory, and as much as I love the title track to John Barleycorn, it's a folk song to me. A great one, but still a folk song!

Edited by SteveG - February 08 2015 at 14:50

^I just thought that Prog fans would prefer Argent to Traffic. Silly me.  

^Actually I'm listening to Low Spark from Traffic right now. Still a good album but it could use some remastering.

^Yes. It doesn't hit me that way off the top of my head but it's certainly Prog!

The Dark Elf wrote: sublime220 wrote: All Together Now is better than anything that Traffic or the solo artists have ever done.   Except for perhaps Mr. Fantasy, Traffic, John Barleycorn Must Die and Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, you may be right.  I may even put Dave Mason's solo Alone Together ahead of the Argent album. The lost classic "Look at You Look at Me" has always been a favorite of mine:

Traffic, though I do love Rod Argent's "flash-rock" kind of playing at The Who's Who Are You  the masterpiece album from 1978.

Edited by Svetonio - February 09 2015 at 05:23

micky wrote: Low Spark of Trollish Forum Members... Traffic a bluesy band?  Not that there is a damn thing wrong with that.. but never really saw Traffic as that. The bands similarity IMO stops at the frontman, keyboard centric nature of the groups. Traffic was a very diverse group musically.. and jazz was at the heart of Traffic.

Just for the record, as much as I like Traffic, they have more of a connection to The Blues Brothers than to Robert Johnson. I'm a soul man!