Steve Winwood

The Spencer Davis Group are a mid-1960s British beat group from Birmingham, England, formed by Spencer Davis with Steve Winwood and his brother Muff... Winwood. Their best known songs include "Somebody Help Me", the UK number one "Keep on Running" , "I'm a Man" and "Gimme Some Lovin'", which peaked at #2 in the UK and #7 in the United States. Steve Winwood left in 1967, to form Traffic before joining Blind Faith, then forging a career as a soloist. After releasing a few more singles the band ceased activity in 1968. Davis started a new group in 2006. The Spencer Davis Group was formed in 1963 in Birmingham when Welsh guitarist Spencer Davis recruited vocalist and organist Steve Winwood and his bass playing brother Muff Winwood. The group was completed with Pete York on drums. Originally called the Rhythm and Blues Quartette, the band performed regularly in the city. In 1964 they signed their first recording contract after Chris Blackwell of Island Records saw them at an appearance in a local club; Blackwell also became their producer.
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Ginger Baker's Air Force was a jazz-rock fusion band comprising Ginger Baker on drums, Steve Winwood on organ and vocals, Ric Grech on violin and... bass, Jeanette Jacobs on vocals, Denny Laine on guitar and vocals, Phil Seamen on drums, Alan White on drums, Chris Wood on tenor sax and flute, Graham Bond on alto sax, Harold McNair on tenor sax and flute, and Remi Kabaka on percussion. Their first live shows, at Birmingham Town Hall in 1969 and the Royal Albert Hall, in 1970, also included Jeanette Jacobs and Eleanor Barooshian , and Remi Kabaka. The band released two albums, both in 1970: Ginger Baker's Air Force and Ginger Baker's Air Force 2. The second album involved substantially different personnel from the first, with Ginger Baker and Graham Bond being the primary constants between albums. Ginger Baker's Air Force also played a set at Wembley Stadium on 19 April 1970, during the start of the World Cup Rally, which went from London to Mexico City.
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Traffic were an English rock band whose members came from the West Midlands. The group formed in April 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood... and Dave Mason. They began as a psychedelic rock group whose early singles were influenced by The Beatles, and diversified their sound through the use of instruments such as keyboards like the Mellotron, reed instruments, and by incorporating jazz and improvisational techniques in their music. Their first three singles were "Paper Sun", "Hole in My Shoe", and "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush". After disbanding in 1969, during which time Winwood joined Blind Faith, Traffic reunited in 1970 to release the critically acclaimed album John Barleycorn Must Die. The band's line-up varied from this point until they disbanded again in 1975, although a partial reunion, with Winwood and Capaldi, took place in 1994. Traffic's singer, keyboardist and sometimes guitarist Steve Winwood was the frontman of the Spencer Davis Group at age 15. The Spencer Davis Group released four Top Ten singles and three Top Ten albums in the United Kingdom, as well as two Top Ten singles in the United States.
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Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Culture Club, Simple... Minds, Lenny Kravitz, The Smashing Pumpkins, Mike Oldfield, and more on their list of artists. It was later sold to Thorn EMI in 1992. Its American operations were merged with Capitol Records in 2007 to create the Capitol Music Group. Branson and Powell had initially run a small record shop called Virgin Records and Tapes on Notting Hill Gate, London, specialising particularly in "krautrock" imports, and offering bean bags and free vegetarian food for the benefit of customers listening to the music on offer. After making the shop into a success, they turned their business into a fully fledged record label. The name Virgin, according to Branson , arose from Tessa Watts, a colleague of his, when they were brainstorming business ideas. She suggested Virgin - as they were all new to business - like "virgins".
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Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company—successor to the Volta Graphophone Company.... Columbia is the oldest brand name in pre-recorded sound, being the first record company to produce pre-recorded records as opposed to blank cylinders. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of notable singers, instrumentalists, and bands. From 1961 to 1990, its recordings were released outside the U.S. and Canada on the CBS Records label before adopting the Columbia name in most of the world. Until 1989, Columbia Records had no connection to Columbia Pictures, which used various other names for record labels they owned, including Colpix and later Arista; rather, it was connected to the original owner, CBS, which stood for Columbia Broadcasting System.
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Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom. Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone Company having... severed their ties during World War I. Deutsche Grammophon claimed the rights to the His Master's Voice trademark for Germany, where HMV recordings were released under the Electrola trademark. In turn, DGG records exported out of Germany were released on the Polydor label. Polydor became a popular music label in 1946 while Deutsche Grammophon became a classical music label. The German rights to the His Master's Voice trademark was sold by Deutsche Grammophon to the Electrola Records unit of EMI in 1949. Polydor remained Deutsche Grammophon's export label, including classical music, in France and the Spanish-speaking world for the remainder of the long-playing era, as a result of language and cultural concerns. In the early 1960s orchestra leader Bert Kaempfert signed unknowns Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers - who would later become famous as The Beatles - to Polydor.
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Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has... its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources. Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
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