For all the buzz surrounding frontman Steve Winwood when he helped type Traffic in 1967, the band’s not-so-secret weapon was its genre-jumping music.

Like a lot of its contemporaries, the quartet performed round with quite a lot of sounds on its albums: pop, rock, jazz, psychedelic, R&B, people, blues, prog and even a type of world music.

But few teams introduced these disparate sounds collectively as warmly and as totally as Traffic, a troubled group that broke up after their first two albums, reunited, broke up once more and took a 20-year break earlier than releasing 1994’s Far From Home.

READ MORE: Revisiting Traffic’s ‘The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys’

The tracks on our listing of the Top 10 Traffic Songs come from their first 5 musically adventurous years.

10. “You Can All Join In” (From Traffic, 1968)

The opening lower on Traffic’s second album is likely one of the band’s breeziest cuts – all handclaps and stinging guitar – written and sung by guitarist Dave Mason. It’s additionally an after-the-fact indication that the group’s artistic heads had some completely different opinions about what kind of band they needed to be: people, pop or a simple rock one. For the time being, they had been slightly little bit of every part.

9. (*10*) (From Traffic, 1968)

Traffic’s second album was a troublesome one for the group. Mason, who had already give up the band as soon as, was clashing with Winwood and the others concerning the route the report was taking. As a outcome, he left the band and does not seem on half of the tracks, together with this considerably heavy religious ode influenced by, presumably, too many bong hits. It’s an indication of extra bold issues to come back.

8. “Medicated Goo” (From Last Exit, 1969)

After Traffic broke up for the primary time in 1968, their report firm pulled collectively a compilation album out of leftover studio cuts and stay tracks. For probably the most half, it is disjointed and soggy. But the bluesy shuffle “Medicated Goo,” recorded throughout periods for the second LP, is a keeper. And like on the John Barleycorn Must Die album (and a part of Traffic), Mason is absent.

7. “Rock & Roll Stew” (From The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, 1971)

Traffic’s fourth studio album enlisted some outsiders to help the remaining authentic trio, they usually introduced with them an improvisational spirit that pushed the LP into jammy prog territory. This slinky blues quantity is the one lower on our listing of the Top 10 Traffic Songs to characteristic percussionist Jim Capaldi on lead vocals.

READ MORE: When Traffic Got Back Together for ‘John Barleycorn Must Die’

6. “Freedom Rider” (From John Barleycorn Must Die, 1970)

Following the discharge of Traffic’s self-titled second album in 1968, Winwood left the band to affix the blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em supergroup Blind Faith. Mason was additionally gone, splitting earlier than Traffic was even completed. After Blind Faith broke up, Winwood began engaged on a solo album, inviting Capaldi and Traffic’s flute participant Chris Wood to assist him out. The mission changed into the band’s third album, sans Mason. This jazzy fave is a spotlight.

5. “Feelin’ Alright?” (From Traffic, 1968)

Other artists – together with Joe Cocker and Grand Funk Railroad – had higher chart success with this jazz-speckled single from Traffic’s second album. But the unique model, penned and sung by Mason, finds the groove simpler than these considerably labored covers. It options the most effective efficiency on report by the guitarist, who left halfway via the album’s periods.

4. “John Barleycorn” (From John Barleycorn Must Die, 1970)

Traffic by no means disguised their people roots – you possibly can dig up a lot on their debut album. But for his or her third studio album (which reached No. 5 – their largest hit), they cultivated them greater than another fashion of music, particularly on the acoustic “John Barleycorn,” a conventional people tune organized because the LP’s six-minute centerpiece. More than something, the lower reveals the band’s mastery in an unplugged setting.

3. “Paper Sun” (From 1967 single)

Traffic’s debut single feels like plenty of different songs that got here out in 1967. That is, trippy, dippy and with plenty of sitar. But it is a pivotal recording within the band’s profession, primarily as a result of it mirrored the group’s flexibility to provide something a shot. Winwood, not but 19 years outdated when “Paper Sun” was recorded, brings over a few of the R&B-inflected vocals he perfected with the Spencer Davis Group.

2. “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” (From The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, 1971)

By the time Traffic made their fourth studio album, they had been substituting precise songs with sprawling set items that included parts of jazz, prog and Grateful Dead-like improv. The spotlight is that this 11-minute build-up that begins and ends with fades. But in the midst of all of it is the group’s most elastic groove, structured round its chewiest hook. Traffic just about wore themselves out after The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, releasing two extra more and more unstructured albums earlier than disbanding till a 1994 reunion. But for one last second, they had been at their highest.

1. “Dear Mr. Fantasy” (From Mr. Fantasy, 1967)

One of Traffic’s first prolonged items (and the centerpiece of their debut album) options one in every of their all-time biggest group performances with the unique 4 members. Winwood’s terrific midsong guitar solo – typically credited to Mason – factors to the band’s spacious explorations on subsequent albums, by which period he was lengthy gone. But on “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” their future sounded filled with infinite prospects.