JOHN BARLEYCORN MUST DIE

After the release of their second album titled "Traffic" in 1968, Dave Mason was again "out of the band", and the remaining trio toured for a time unitl late 1968, when Steve Winwood left the band, and the band was over for a time. But Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood, with Dave Mason and organist Mick Weaver (AKA "Wynder K. Frog") started playing together as a new band called MASON, CAPALDI, WOOD AND FROG (AKA "WOODEN FROG") until March 1969, when they split, only leaving a few BBC recordings. This band mainly played songs composed by Mason (which he also recorded later as a soloist) plus covers of a few Blues songs. Winwood left TRAFFIC to form a "Super-Group" with Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Ric Grech, called BLIND FAITH, which only lasted for an album and a tour, a band which never left the members very satisfied musically and personally despite the success of their album and tour. By September 1969, Eric Clapton was out of BLIND FAITH, and the remaining members of that band went to play for some months in GINGER BAKER`s AIRFORCE, a band which also included other musicians. After recording one album with them, Winwood left that band in early 1970 and started to recod a solo album with Guy Stevens as producer, using "Mad Shadows" as the working title for that planned album. Anyway, it seems that Winwood was not very happy working with Stevens as producer, and after recording a few songs / demos, he contacted Capaldi and Wood and started playing and recording with them again. So good were the results that finally they decided to reform TRAFFIC and to record this album titled "John Barleycorn Must Die", which was released in mid 1970.

The band had some changes in sound and style, but they still sounded as the "old" TRAFFIC, as Capaldi, Winwood and Wood were always (at least unitl 1974) the main members of the band, with only some changes in the other members of the band. Another change was that Wood, while in 1967-68 he was one of the main composers in the band with Capaldi and Winwood, from 1970 to 1974 he did not participate very much in the songwriting, leaving it mainly to Capaldi and Winwood.

This album from 1970 also shows new musical influences, like some Jazz influences in "Glad" and "Empty Pages", and some Folk music influences in "John Barleycorn", a traditional song which Wood brought to the band to record for this album. And one as a listener really can listen to this album as really being a half Winwood solo album / half TRAFFIC album, because Wood only appears in four of the six songs from the original release (he does not appear in "Stranger to Himself" and in "Every Mother`s Son"). Capaldi appears in all songs, but he only sang backing vocals in "Stranger to Himself", with all the instruments and lead vocals in that song being played by Winwood. The remastered CD released in 1999 also included two bonus studio tracks ("I Just Want to Know" and "Sittin`Here Thinkin`of my Love") with both entirely played and sung by Winwood, and they sound more as demos from his then solo album than as TRAFFIC`s songs (but with both being credited as songs composed by Winwood and Capaldi). Anyway, the album is very enjoyable as a whole, with all songs (except "Glad", which was composed by Winwood alone) being credited as composed by Winwood / Capaldi.

The remastered CD released in 1999 also included two songs (plus an humorous stage introduction done by promoter Bill Graham) recorded for a then planned but never released live album, recorded at the Fillmore East in New York in 18-November-1970. By April 1970 the trio was playing all the songs of the new album in concerts, but by August 1970 Ric Grech was a new member of the band, giving some freedom to Winwood (who played bass pedals in concert most of the time with the band, sometimes helped a bit by Wood while Winwood played guitar), and Grech appears playing guitar in "Who Knows What Tommorrow May Bring" and bass guitar in "Glad". "Glad" was originally followed in concert, as in the album, by "Freedom Rider", but in this bonus track the song is faded out before "Freedom Rider" starts.