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Music CD - Traffic: Welcome to the Canteen
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Music CD: Welcome to the Canteen
Artist: Traffic
List Price: $11.98
Our Price: $5.52
Your Save: $ 6.46 ( 54% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Island
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. Medicated Goo
2. Sad And Deep As You
3. 40,000 Headmen
4. Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave
5. Dear Mr. Fantasy
6. Gimme Some Lovin'
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0731458684725
Format: Live
Label: Island
Manufacturer: Island
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Island
Release Date: 2002-03-19
Studio: Island
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Disposable live album from a great studio band
Comment: Traffic was one of the most interesting and tasteful bands of the late 1960's and early 1970's. But this recording makes it clear just how limited they were live, due to an interesting problem: The wonderful Steve Winwood was their best singer, keyboard player guitar player and even their best bass player. In the studio, he could do all of these things on the same track, and even double up on piano and Hammond B3 organ. But live, he could only play one instrument and sing.
So even when, as on this recording from 1971, he was reunited with erstwhile bandmate Dave Mason, who was a big contributor to Traffic's first two great albums from 1967-68, the results are most disappointing. Where are the tasty piano fills? Or the searing lead guitar on Mr. Fantasy? Missing. Winwood is playing other parts. Mason is not up the lead guitar role. And the recording quality is very poor, barely acceptable for even a bootleg. The bass frequencies are 99% missing. No lower octaves, no bass drum. Even for 1971, this is way below standards.
So, if you haven't heard "Traffic" from 1968, or "John Barleycorn" from 1970, or "Low Spark" from 1972, go buy them right now. These are three fo the greatest albums of their era. The first has more range, due to Mason's songwriting contributions on top of Winwoods usual greatness, and the later two feature Winwood at his very finest. But skip this poor release. It truly sounds like the obligatory contract fulfiller that other reviewers say it was. A real throwaway effort. I feel that my fellow reviewers have caused me to waste money looking-in vain- for a hidden gem I somehow missed.
Great band, bad album.
Customer Rating:
Summary: If Only Traffic Had Room For Dave Mason (or Vice Versa)
Comment: I'm not much of a fan of live recordings as the spontaneity of a live performance is best felt with the interactivity of having been there. However, Traffic must've been fantastic in person. The feeling imparted by this LP is that Traffic was always better with singer/guitarist/composer Dave Mason in their ranks. His tunes benefit greatly from the accompaniment of his erstwhile band members and the auxiliary assemblage of musicians. Better proof of this would be to listen to any mid-70's Dave Mason LP followed by "Shootout At The Fantasy Factory" by Traffic; one yearns to take the best of both and forge a Traffic album with all of the principals involved. That is the beauty of having CD burning software (for your own personal use, of course).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sad And Deep
Comment: No words could describe howe great "Sad And Deep As You" is with Chris Wood And Reebop Kwaku Baah (not to mention Dave Mason's amazing vocal).
The rest is also tremendous. A no-brainer. Get it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Welcome to the Canteen par excellence
Comment: I owned this record (and I still do although it's a bit scratched up) back in high school. One of my all time favorite live albums. The CD sounds great. I would rate this as the my all time favorite Traffic album.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fabulous live album....
Comment: Cookin' good live album from a nice full assemblage of Traffic members. Of course we have Messrs. Winwood, and Capaldi and Wood but also erstwhile member Dave Mason is here, Rick Grech fills in the essential bass role, and Reebop Kwaku Baah pounds the congas. None of the stripped down trio setup that too often prevented them from performing live without assistance from non-members. And they bring in the best of what all the members could contribute, nice Mason tunes and, oh yes, a super reprisal of the pinnacle of Steve's days with Spencer Davis (Gimme Some Lovin').
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Editorial Reviews:
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To call Traffic "mercurial" might be an understatement. After a promising debut, the band (whose core consisted of vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Stevie Winwood, vocalist-percussionist Jim Capaldi, and winds player-keyboardist Chris Wood) variously broke up, saw Winwood's participation in the supergroup Blind Faith, reformed, and struggled with lineup expansions and contractions. Indeed, this 1971 live album recorded in London followed an unreleased Fillmore East effort by John Barleycorn's four-piece edition (the trio plus Blind Faith bassist Rick Grech). Now rhythmically augmented by Jim Gordon, ex-Dizzy Gillespie sideman Reebop Kwaku Baah, and the return of singer-songwriter Dave Mason for his third stint in the band, Traffic turns in a rich, eclectic set that didn't so much recap their career as retool it entirely. With Mason's more prosaic "Sad and Deep as You Are" and "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave" alternating with the exotic impressionism of "40,000 Headmen," the good-natured R&B of "Medicated Goo," and the early staple "Dear Mr. Fantasy," this sounds like a band with a lot of promise. But typically, Mason's tenure this time 'round lasted just six performances. The feverish, polyrhythmic reworking of Winwood's Spencer Davis hit, "Gimme Some Lovin'," hints at the more fusion-oriented direction the band would take on its next studio album. Unfortunately, modern digital remastering hasn't improved the original recording's somewhat muddled sound. --Jerry McCulley
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