I was around when the The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys album dropped in 1971. It was a jaw-dropper. A progressive rock album with jazz overtones, the title track immediately captured my attention then as it still does now.
Here are real musicians, sans canned/digital anything, transcending genre and commercial form using complex time signatures laying down an 11+ minute track of beyond rock. Before this there was nothing like this. 52 years later there still isn’t anything like this track. A river of ink has been written about Traffic, Steve Winwood and this album for the simple reason that it’s a great piece of work and Winwood et. al. tapped into some kind of cosmic vein of infinite groove when they created this music.
While there’s so much to like, the highlight for me on the title track is Winwood’s organ played uniquely through a fuzz-box as it rips and growls through the latter half culminating in a palms down mega-chord finale that holds unchanging as it fades out into nothing, the bass and piano signature riffs holding steady, following it out.
I’m highlighting the title track of this album in my collection of posts on music because it’s an example of one-of-a-kind, interesting, genre defying music that I find myself revisiting every now and then. And it never disappoints.
Every time I listen to this track I think this is why God invented great stereo gear, 15 year single-malt, and weed 😉