SHOOT OUT AT THE FANTASY FACTORY

In December 1971, Ric Grech and Jim Gordon left TRAFFIC, and Jim Capaldi went to record a solo album to Muscle Shoals Studios in Alabama with the famous musicians from The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (drummer Roger Hawkins, bassist David Hood, keyboard player Barry Beckett, and guitarist Jimmy Johnson), plus The Muscle Shoals Horns. That first solo album was titled "Oh How We Danced", and six of the eight songs from that album were recorded in Alabama, while two other songs were recorded in London, one of which ("Open Your Heart") was recorded with TRAFFIC`s line-up of their previous album titled "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys". Some of the eight songs from that album also have appearances from Steve Winwood, Chris Wood, Reebop and Dave Mason. The album was released in April 1972, and at least in my country, Capaldi had a Hit Single with "Eve", the first song from that album which was (and still is) played in some FM Radio stations in my city. It seems that by that time Steve Winwood became ill with peritonitis, but when he recovered from that illness, Capaldi suggested to invite Roger Hawkins and David Hood to join TRAFFIC. They joined the band and started playing concerts, one of which was filmed and released as "Live at Santa Monica" in 1972. Later the band went to Jamaica to record a new studio album, titled "Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory". which was released in February 1973.

This album is less inspired by Folk music and most songs are more inspired by Rock music in general, with Winwood playing some distorted guitars in several parts. This can be listened more clearly in the title track of the album which also has some very good Latin music influenced percussion playing from Capaldi and Reebop. "Roll Right Stones" has a very good electric sax solo played by Chris Wood (with some "wah-wah" sound effects) in the extended final instrumental section of this song. "In "Evening Blue" Winwood plays acoustic guitars and maybe this is the most "relaxed" song in this album. The next song, "Tragic Magic", was composed by Chris Wood (all the other songs from this album were composed by Winwood and Capaldi), and this instrumental song has a lot of influences from Jazz Rock music with very good saxophones played by Wood. The final song in this album, and maybe the best from this album, is "(Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired", a song with somewhat sad lyrics. Maybe Capaldi (the lyricist) was a bit tired of being working in the music bussiness, so he wrote the lyrics of this song. The music in this song is particularly very good, and this song includes very good lead guitar parts played by Winwood. In this album Capaldi did not sing lead vocals on any song, but his backing vocals are listened more clearly in "Roll Right Stones". Jimmy Johnson and Barry Beckett are mentioned with a "thanks to" in the credits section in the album s cover, but it is not clear at least for me if they also played in some parts of this album.

For their 1973 tours the band also invited Barry Beckett to join the band on keyboards, giving more freedom to Winwood to play guitar or keyboards as he wanted apart from singing lead vocals on most songs, and also giving freedom to Chris Wood who previously sometimes also played keyboards in some songs while Winwood played guitar or other keyboards. I think that this line-up of the band was one of the best they had, with the three members of The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section being very good and experienced musicians, playing very well. This line-up recorded the very good live album titled "On the Road" in Germany in April 1973. Jimmy Johnson also joined the band but as sound engineer for the concerts. Unfortunately, all these very good musicians from The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section left the band in September 1973 (but they carried on working with Capaldi in some of his solo albums from the mid seventies). Capaldi then returned to play drums with the band, while their new bass player was Rosko Gee, from Jamaica. Reebop stayed with the band until mid 1974, with him apparently appearing uncredited in two songs from TRAFFIC`s next and then last album (titled "When the Eagle Flies", which was released in September 1974) before they split in December 1974.

This album, "Shoot at the Fantasy Factory" is very good. It also has a vey good recording and mixing, and like their previous album from 1971 ("The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys") it also has a very original cover design done by Tony Wright.

After a long time of not listening to some of TRAFFIC`s albums, it really was very good and enjoyable for me to listen to them again recently. TRAFFIC was a very good band, in my opinion, despite all the changes in personnel they had.