By M&C News Mar 25, 2008, 23:37 GMT
The legendary singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Steve Winwood has signed a new deal with Columbia Records who will release the artist's highly-anticipated new major label album, ‘Nine Lives,’ on Tuesday, April 29. Winwood is also scheduled to hit the road with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers this summer.
The eagerly-awaited ‘Nine Lives’ is Winwood's first full-length studio album since the artist released ‘About Time’ on his own independent label, Wincraft, in 2003 and opens an important new chapter in Steve's extraordinary career.
Each of the nine tracks on the aptly-titled ‘Nine Lives’ paints a musical portrait of spiritual transformation as Winwood continues the exploration of soul, rock, blues and world music which began in 1957, when, at the age of 9, he played guitar in his father's band in Birmingham, England.
Songs on ‘Nine Lives’ include "I'm Not Drowning," "Fly,” “Raging Sea," "Dirty City," "We're All Looking," "Hungry Man," "Secrets," "At Times We Do Forget," and "Other Shore." Additionally, fellow musical legend Eric Clapton lends guitar work to “Dirty City.” News of Steve Winwood's ‘Nine Lives’ comes in the wake of a transcendent live collaboration between Winwood and his erstwhile Blind Faith bandmate Eric Clapton at the Chicago Crossroads Guitar Festival in July 2007. The pair's staggering on-stage chemistry in Chicago led to the announcement of three historic Steve Winwood & Eric Clapton concerts at New York's fabled Madison Square Garden, scheduled for February 25, 26 and 28, 2008. Tickets for all three of Winwood's MSG shows with Clapton sold-out within minutes of their release.
Winwood (who turns 60 this year) was perhaps the youngest member of the original British pop music invasion of the mid-1960s. A prodigious guitarist and keyboard player in the Birmingham R&B scene by his mid-teens, Winwood cut his musical chops as a back-up musician for an impressive array of American rock & roll and blues pioneers -- including Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley -- during their UK tours.
In 1962, Steve and his older brother, Muff Winwood, began playing with Spencer Davis and drummer Pete York in The Rhythm & Blues Quartet, an ensemble which would eventually morph into the Spencer Davis Group. An intensely powerful and emotional vocalist and formidable songwriter, Steve Winwood launched an enormously influential "blue-eyed soul" movement with hits like "Keep On Runnin'," "Somebody Help Me," and, especially, the massively successful pop-soul anthem, "Gimme Some Lovin'." Originally released in 1966, "Gimme Some Lovin'" entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1996. Winwood left the Spencer Davis Group in 1967 to form the groundbreaking jazz-rock ensemble Traffic.
In 1966, as "Gimme Some Lovin' transformed the pop landscape, the 18-year-old Steve Winwood entered into his first collaboration with Eric Clapton, recording three songs -- "Steppin' Out," "Crossroads," and "I Want To Know" -- as the Powerhouse (a group which also included future Cream bassist Jack Bruce). Winwood and Clapton would join forces again in 1969 to create Blind Faith, one of pop music's first bona fide supergroups, with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Rick Grech.
Following the break-up of Traffic in 1974 (they would reform and successfully tour in the 1990s), Steve Winwood launched a successful solo career which reached an apogee in the mid-1980s with the release of four classic albums in a row: "Arc of a Diver" (1981, platinum); "Talking Back To The Night" (1982); "Back In The High Life" (1986, 3x platinum), which featured the #1 smash, "Higher
Love," which earned Winwood a trio of Grammys including "Record of the Year"; and the #1 Billboard chart-topping "Roll With It" (1988, 2x platinum).
Through his unparalleled five-plus decades career, Steve Winwood has remained an in-demand session player, contributing his signature sound to an amazing variety of projects for artists including
Jimi Hendrix ("Electric Ladyland"), Joe Cocker ("With A Little Help From My Friends"), Leon Russell ("Leon Russell"), Lou Reed ("Berlin"), George Harrison ("Dark Horse," "George Harrison"), Toots & the Maytals ("Reggae Got Soul"), Marianne Faithfull ("Dangerous Acquaintances"), David Gilmour ("About Face"), Tina Turner ("Break Every Rule"), Billy Joel ("The Bridge"), James Brown ("Gravity"), Rosanne Cash ("King's Record Shop"), Jimmy Buffett ("Hot Water"), Phil Collins ("But Seriously"), Etta James ("Right Time"), Paul Weller ("Stanley Road"), and Christina Aguilera ("Back To Basics"), among many others.
The private Steve Winwood is an outdoorsman who loves hiking and walking, and a dedicated family man who spends his Sundays playing the organ and singing in his church choir.
With ‘Nine Lives,’ Steve Winwood opens up his world and gives his fans, old and new, nine new reasons to celebrate the life and music of this ageless, and still prodigious, musical treasure.
Steve Winwood Tour Dates (With Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers): 5/30/2008 GRAND RAPIDS, MI VAN ANDEL ARENA5/31/2008 DETROIT, MI THE PALACE6/5/2008 WILKES-BARRE, PA WACHOVIA CENTER6/8/2008 BRISTOW, VA NISSAN PAVILLION AT STONE RIDGE6/10/2008 PITTSBURGH, PA POST- GAZETTE PAVILION6/11/2008 HARTFORD, CT NEW ENGLAND DODGE MUSIC CENTER6/13/2008 BOSTON, MA TD BANKNORTH GARDEN6/17/2008 NEW YORK, NY MADISON SQUARE GARDEN6/18/2008 BOSTON, MA PRUDENTIAL CENTER6/21/2008 DARIEN CTR, NY DARIEN LAKE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER6/22/2008 CUYAHOGA FALLS, OH BLOSSOM MUSIC CENTER, STADIUM6/25/2008 HOLLYWOOD , CA HOLLYWOOD BOWL7/2/2008 CHICAGO, IL UNITED CENTER7/3/2008 NOBLESVILLE, IN VERIZON WIRELESS MUSIC CENTER7/8/2008 CINCINNATI, OH RIVERBEND MUSIC CENTER7/9/2008 ALPHARETTA , GA VERIZON WIRELESS AMP AT ENCORE PARK7/11/2008 CHARLOTTE, NC VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATER7/12/2008 RALEIGH, NC WALNUT CREEK AMPHITHEATRE7/15/2008 SUNRISE, FL BANKATLANTIC CENTER7/16/2008 TAMPA-ST.PETERSBURG, FL ST. PETE TIMES FORUM7/19/2008 DENVER, CO DICK’S SPORTING GOODS PARK7/20/2008 OMAHA, NE QWEST CENTER7/22/2008 KANSAS CITY, MO SPRINT CENTER7/23/2008 MINNEAPOLIS, MN TARGET CENTER, ARENA8/7/2008 MARYLAND HTS, MO VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATER8/15/2008 QUINCY, WA GORGE AMPHITHEATRE8/16/2008 QUINCY, WA GORGE AMPHITHEATRE8/20/2008 GLENDALE, AZ JOBING.COM ARENA8/23/2008 SAN FRANCISCO, CA TBA8/26/2008 SELMAN CITY, TX VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE8/27/2008 DALLAS, TX AMERICAN AIRLINES CENTER8/29/2008 THE WOODLANDS, TX THE WOODLANDS
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