''John Barleycorn Must Die'' is the fourth studio album by English rock band

Traffic Traffic comprises pedestrians, vehicles, ridden or herded animals, trains, and other conveyances that use public ways (roads) for travel and transportation. Traffic laws govern and regulate traffic, while rules of the road include traffi ...

, released in 1970 as

Island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

ILPS 9116 in the United Kingdom,

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...

UAS 5504 in the United States, and as

Polydor Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States ...

2334 013 in Canada. It marked the band's comeback after a brief disbandment, and peaked at number 5 on the ''Billboard'' 200, making it their highest-charting album in the US, and has been certified a

gold record Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

by the RIAA. In addition, the single "Empty Pages" spent eight weeks on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, peaking at number 74. The album was marginally less successful in the UK, reaching number 11 on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

.Traffic in the UK Charts
, The Official Charts. Retrieved 9 August 2011.

Background and content

In late 1968, Traffic disbanded, with guitarist

Dave Mason David Thomas Mason (born 10 May 1946) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist from Worcester, who first found fame with the rock band Traffic. Over the course of his career, Mason has played and recorded with many notable pop and rock mu ...

leaving the group for the second time prior to the completion of the ''

'' album. In 1969, Steve Winwood joined the supergroup

Blind Faith Blind Faith were an English supergroup featuring Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech. They were eagerly anticipated by the music press following on the success of each of the member's former bands, including Clapton a ...

, while drummer and lyricist

Jim Capaldi Nicola James Capaldi (2 August 1944 – 28 January 2005) was an English singer-songwriter and drummer. His musical career spanned more than four decades. He co-founded the progressive rock band Traffic in 1967 with Steve Winwood with whom he co ...

and woodwinds player Chris Wood turned to session work. Wood and Winwood also joined Blind Faith's drummer

Ginger Baker Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker (19 August 1939 – 6 October 2019) was an English drummer. His work in the 1960s and 1970s earned him the reputation of "rock's first superstar drummer", for a style that melded jazz and African rhythms and pi ...

in his post-Blind Faith group

Ginger Baker's Air Force Ginger Baker's Air Force was a jazz-rock fusion supergroup led by drummer Ginger Baker. History The band formed in late 1969 upon the disbandment of Blind Faith. The original lineup consisted of Ginger Baker on drums, Steve Winwood on orga ...

for their first album, ''

'' (1970). At the beginning of 1970, after the demise of Blind Faith, Winwood returned to the studio ostensibly to make his first solo album, originally to be titled ''Mad Shadows''. He recorded two tracks with producer

Guy Stevens Guy Stevens (13 April 1943 – 28 August 1981) was a British music industry figure whose roles included DJ, record producer, and band manager. He was influential in promoting R&B music in Britain in the 1960s, gave the rock bands Procol Ha ...

, "Stranger to Himself" and "Every Mother's Son", but yearned for like-minded musicians to accompany, inviting Wood and Capaldi to join him. Thus Winwood's erstwhile solo album became the reunion of Traffic (minus Dave Mason), and a re-launch of the band's career. ''Mad Shadows'' would go on to be the title of

Mott the Hoople Mott the Hoople were an English rock band formed in Herefordshire. Originally known as the Doc Thomas Group, the group changed their name after signing with Island Records in 1969. The band released albums throughout the early 1970s but fai ...

's second album, also produced by Guy Stevens, and the new Winwood/Traffic album took its title from one of its tracks and became ''John Barleycorn Must Die''. The album featured influences from

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

and blues, but the version of the traditional English folk tune that provided the album's title, "

John Barleycorn "John Barleycorn" is an English and Scottish folk song listed as number 164 in the Roud Folk Song Index. John Barleycorn, the song's protagonist, is a personification of barley and of the alcoholic beverages made from it: beer and whisky. ...

", also showed the musicians attending to a modern interpretation of traditional folk music in the vein of contemporary British bands Pentangle and Fairport Convention. Whereas previous Traffic albums had been dominated by more concise song structures, ''John Barleycorn'' saw the group develop into a looser,

jam Jam is a type of fruit preserve. Jam or Jammed may also refer to: Other common meanings * A firearm malfunction * Block signals ** Radio jamming ** Radar jamming and deception ** Mobile phone jammer ** Echolocation jamming Arts and ente ...

-oriented

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...

and jazz fusion style, setting the tone for their subsequent output in the 1970s. The album was reissued for compact disc in the UK on 1 November 1999, with five bonus tracks, including three recorded in concert from the

Fillmore East The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the (at the time) Lower East Side neighborhood, now called the East Village neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan of New York City. I ...

in New York City. In the US, the

remastered Remaster refers to changing the quality of the sound or of the image, or both, of previously created recordings, either audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. The terms digital remastering and digitally remastered are also used. Mastering A ...

reissue of 27 February 2001 included only the two studio bonus tracks. Steve Winwood oversaw a deluxe edition that was released on 15 March 2011,Progressive Rock with a Capital P
–

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...

. featuring the original studio album, digitally remastered on disc one, plus a second disc of bonus material, including more of the Fillmore East concert, with alternate mixes and versions of album tracks.

Cover

The original LP release of the album had the front cover design on a background consisting of a photograph of

burlap Hessian (, ), burlap in the United States and Canada, or crocus in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, is a woven fabric usually made from skin of the jute plant or sisal fibres, which may be combined with other vegetable fibres to make rope, nets, ...

. Later LP copies had the design on a grey background. The cover is displayed prominently during a party scene in the 1971 movie by Dario Argento, '' Four Flies on Grey Velvet''.

Reception

Retrospective reviews of the album have been mixed.

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

criticised the vocal sections as "excuses for Winwood to exercise his expressive voice as punctuation to the extended instrumental sections", but made note of how the album took the band's jazz/rock leanings beyond mere jamming. AllMusic: Traffic – ''John Barleycorn Must Die'' (1970) album review by William Ruhlmann/ref> ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...

'' critic Robert Christgau said the departure of Mason hurt Traffic's songwriting on the album, leaving the band to depend on Winwood's "feckless improvised rock, or is it folksong-based jazz?" It was voted number 369 in

Colin Larkin Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British writer and entrepreneur. He founded, and was the editor-in-chief of, the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". Along wit ...

All Time Top 1000 Albums ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'' is a book by Colin Larkin, creator and editor of the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music''. The book was first published by Guinness Publishing in 1994. The list presented is the result of over 200,000 votes cast by th ...

3rd Edition (2000).

Track listing and personnel

Previously unreleased studio bonus tracks 4. ("I Just Want You To Know") and 8. ("Sittin' Here Thinkin' of My Love") are solo demos by Winwood. The live tracks, recorded on 18/19 November at the

, comprise what was to have been side one of ''Live Traffic'' (ILPS 9142), presumably shelved in favor of ''

Welcome to the Canteen ''Welcome to the Canteen'' is the first live album by English rock band Traffic. It was recorded live at Fairfield Halls, Croydon and the Oz Benefit Concert, London, July 1971 and released in September of that year. It was recorded during Dave Ma ...

''. Island Records 314 548 541-2, also includes the previously unreleased tracks "I Just Want You to Know" and "Sittin' Here Thinkin' of My Love". ''Tracks 4–10 recorded on 18–19 November 1970 at the

Personnel

;Traffic * Steve Winwood – acoustic piano (1, 2, 5), organ (1, 2, 3), percussion (1, 2), vocals (2-5), electric piano (3), bass guitar (3), all instruments (4), acoustic guitar (5), all other instruments (6) *

– drums (1, 2, 3, 5, 6), percussion (1, 2, 3), vocals (4, 5),

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

(5) * Chris Wood – percussion (1, 2, 5), saxophone (1, 2), electric saxophone (1, 2), flute (1, 2, 5), organ (3)

Production

* Chris Blackwell – producer (1, 2, 3, 5) * Steve Winwood – producer (1, 2, 3, 5) * Guy Stevens – producer (4, 6) * Brian Humphries – engineer *

Andy Johns Jeremy Andrew "Andy" Johns (20 May 1950 – 7 April 2013) was a British sound engineer and record producer who worked on several well-known rock albums, including the Rolling Stones' '' Exile on Main St.'' (1972), Television's '' Marquee Moon'' ...

– engineer * Lee Hulko – mastering * Mike Sida – album design * Richard Polak – photography

Charts

References

Notes

External links

Official press release for ''John Barleycorn Must Die'' 2011 reissue

Traffic – ''John Barleycorn Must Die'' (1970) album releases & credits
at Discogs.com {{Authority control Traffic (band) albums 1970 albums Island Records albums United Artists Records albums Polydor Records albums Albums produced by Chris Blackwell Albums produced by Steve Winwood Albums produced by Guy Stevens Albums recorded at Olympic Sound Studios