After dispensing with his services in December 1967, the remaining members of
Traffic reinstated
Dave Mason in the group in the spring of 1968 as they struggled to write enough material for their impending second album. The result was a disc evenly divided between
Mason's catchy folk-rock compositions and
Steve Winwood's compelling rock jams.
Mason's material was the most appealing both initially and eventually: the lead-off track, a jaunty effort called "You Can All Join In," became a European hit, and "Feelin' Alright?" turned out to be the only real standard to emerge from the album after it started earning cover versions from
Joe Cocker and others in the 1970s.
Winwood's efforts, with their haunting keyboard-based melodies augmented by Chris Wood's reed work and
Jim Capaldi's exotic rhythms, work better as musical efforts than lyrical ones. Primary lyricist
Capaldi's words tend to be impressionistic reveries or vague psychological reflections; the most satisfying is the shaggy-dog story "Forty Thousand Headmen," which doesn't really make any sense as anything other than a dream. But the lyrics to
Winwood/
Capaldi compositions take a back seat to the playing and
Winwood's soulful voice. As
Mason's simpler, more direct performances alternate with the more complex
Winwood tunes, the album is well-balanced. It's too bad that the musicians were not able to maintain that balance in person; for the second time in two albums,
Mason found himself dismissed from the group just as an LP to which he'd made a major contribution hit the stores. Only a few months after that, the band itself split up, but not before scoring their second consecutive Top Ten ranking in the U.K.; the album also reached the Top 20 in the U.S., breaking the temporarily defunct group stateside. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi
