"Can I cope with today?
My love is leavin' me.
Still I'm hoping she'll stay.
My love is leavin's me."
The long and storied career of one singer songwriter Steve Winwood is impressive indeed and really should need no introduction.
The Spencer Davis Group.
Blind Faith (with Eric Clapton).
Traffic.
He's provided session work with some of the very best acts in music. Christine McVie. Robert Palmer. Lou Reed. George Harrison. Billy Joel. Phil Collins. And even Talk Talk on one of my very favorite recordings, The Colour Of Spring (1986).
And the list of musical endeavors goes on. If you're not at least familiar with Winwood you really do need to expand your musical horizons.
Winwood really made a name for himself as a solo artist with the arrival of the wonderful effervescent pop number While You See A Chance from Arc Of A Diver in (1980), but it was his third solo album, Back In The High Life (1986), that really saw the singer riding just that way---high. Roll With It (1988) capitalized on that momentum with another slough of great pop songs including Holding On, Don't You Know What The Night Can Do? and the title track.
But the aforementioned Back In The High Life remains a classic recording in its entirety filled with just eight inspired songs like Higher Love, Freedom Overspill, The Finer Things and the title track.
Driving to work with my own personal freedom overspill of music the selection My Love's Leavin' lit up the speakers and filled the car's cabin.
It's an infectiously simple closer to the recording, an unforgettable album track that reminds us all that not every great song has to be or is a pop hit. And not every song has to be a masterpiece in writing as evidenced by the sheer simplicity of this little love song.
My Love's Leavin' me remains one of those songs that receives heavy rotation on my playlist and is one of my favorites from that recording saving the best for last. In fact hearing it reminds me just how in the zone Steve Winwood was in the 1980s. The song also serves to refresh us with the facts that their is indeed a lot of great music out there still to be rediscovered and revisited. Winwood is unquestionably one of those artists that deserves a look.
Back In The High Life (1986). B+. A collection of eight gems that sort of reintroduced Winwood's voice to the pop world and the man had something to say, which is certainly not always the case in any pop landscape. He was definitely back in the high life with this work.
My Love's Leavin'. A. A sheer delight of simplicity in music production whereby Winwood delivers a tender, even melancholy little love and loss track to close out his classic, short eight song effort.
