Background and career
Stephen Lawrence Winwood (born 12 May 1948) is an English musician and songwriter whose genres include blue-eyed soul, rhythm and blues, blues rock and pop rock. Though primarily a keyboard player, guitarist and vocalist prominent for his distinctive soulful high tenor voice, Winwood also plays other instruments including mandolin, electric bass, saxophone, flute, drums and percussion. Winwood achieved fame during the 1960s and 1970s as an integral member of three successful bands: the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Blind Faith. During the 1980s his solo career flourished and he had a number of hit singles, including "While You See a Chance" (1980) from the album Arc of a Diver, and "Valerie" (1982) from Talking Back to the Night ("Valerie" became a hit when it was re-released with a remix from Winwood's 1987 compilation album Chronicles). Winwood's 1986 album Back in the High Life marked his career zenith, with hit singles including "Back in the High Life Again", "The Finer Things", and the US Billboard Hot 100 No.1 hit "Higher Love". He reached No.1 on the Hot 100 again with "Roll with It" (1988) from the album Roll with It, with "Don't You Know What the Night Can Do?" and "Holding On" also charting highly the same year. Although his hit singles ceased after the 1980s, he continued to release new albums. His most recent album, Nine Lives, was released in 2008. In 2004, Winwood was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Traffic. He has won two Grammy Awards and an Ivor Novello Award, and has been honoured as a BMI Icon. In 2008, Rolling Stone ranked Winwood the 33rd-greatest singer. In 2025, Winwood was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the King's Birthday Honours.
Winwood was born on 12 May 1948 in Handsworth, Birmingham. His father Lawrence, a foundryman by trade, was a semi-professional musician, playing mainly the saxophone and clarinet. Winwood began playing piano at the age of four while interested in swing and Dixieland jazz, and soon started playing drums and guitar. He was also a choirboy at St John the Evangelist's Church, Perry Barr. The family moved from Handsworth to Atlantic Road, Kingstanding, Birmingham, and he attended Great Barr School, one of the first comprehensive schools. He also attended classes at the Birmingham and Midland Institute to develop his skills as a pianist, but did not complete his course. During this time, he befriended future Fleetwood Mac member Christine Perfect. At eight years of age, Winwood first performed with his father and elder brother Muff in the Ron Atkinson band. Muff Winwood later recalled that when Steve began playing regularly with him and his father in licensed pubs and clubs, the piano had to be turned with its back to the audience to try to hide him because he was so obviously underage.
While still a pupil at Great Barr School, Winwood was a part of the Birmingham blues rock scene, playing the Hammond C-3 organ and guitar, backing blues and rock legends such as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley on their United Kingdom tours, the custom at that time being for US singers to travel solo and be backed by pick-up bands. At this time, Winwood was living on Atlantic Road in Kingstanding, close to the Birmingham music halls where he played. Winwood modelled his singing after Ray Charles.
In 1963, Winwood (then known as "Stevie" Winwood) became singer and keyboardist of the Spencer Davis Group, with his older brother Muff Winwood on bass, Spencer Davis on guitar, and Pete York on drums. Davis had been impressed by the Winwood brothers after he saw them performing as the Muffy Wood Jazz Band at the Golden Eagle in Birmingham. The Spencer Davis Group made their debut at the Eagle and subsequently had a Monday-night residency there. Winwood's distinctive high tenor singing voice and vocal style drew comparisons to Ray Charles. In 1964, the Spencer Davis Group signed their first recording contract with Island Records. Producer and founder Chris Blackwell later said of Winwood, "He was really the cornerstone of Island Records. He's a musical genius and because he was with Island all the other talent really wanted to be with Island." The group's first single "Dimples" was released 10 days after Winwood's 16th birthday. The group had two UK No.1 singles in late 1965 and early 1966 with "Keep on Running" and "Somebody Help Me". The money from this success allowed Winwood to buy his own Hammond organ. Winwood co-wrote the band's breakthrough hits in America, "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm a Man", both of which went Top 10 in the US and UK in late 1966 and early 1967. Winwood left the Spencer Davis Group in April 1967.
Winwood met drummer Jim Capaldi, guitarist Dave Mason and multi-instrumentalist Chris Wood when they jammed together at The Elbow Room, a club in Aston, Birmingham. After Winwood left the Spencer Davis Group in April 1967, the quartet formed Traffic. Soon after, they rented a cottage near the rural village of Aston Tirrold, Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), to write and rehearse new music. This allowed them to escape the city and develop their music. Early in Traffic's formation, Winwood and Capaldi formed a songwriting partnership, with Winwood writing music to match Capaldi's lyrics. This partnership was the source of most of Traffic's material, including popular songs such as "Paper Sun", "No Face, No Name, No Number", "Dear Mr. Fantasy", and "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys", and outlived the band, producing several songs for Winwood's and Capaldi's solo albums. Over the band's history, Winwood performed the majority of their lead vocals, keyboard instruments and guitars (guitars more so after Mason's departure in 1968). Traffic disbanded in early 1969 after two albums, Mr. Fantasy (1967) and Traffic (1968), with a third album, Last Exit, being issued later that year.
Following Traffic's split, Winwood formed the supergroup Blind Faith, along with former Cream members Eric Clapton (guitar) and Ginger Baker (drums), and former Family member Ric Grech (bass). The band produced only one album, which reached No.1 in both the UK and US, and included "Can't Find My Way Home". The band was short-lived owing to Clapton's greater interest in Blind Faith's opening act on tour, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends; Clapton left the band at the tour's completion, bringing Blind Faith to an end.
