Welcome to the Canteen
Encyclopedia
Welcome to the Canteen is the fifth 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 Mason
's third stint with the band, which lasted only six performances.
The tracklist includes one song each from the first three Traffic albums; two songs from Mason
's first solo album, Alone Together; and "Gimme Some Lovin'
" from Steve Winwood
's former band, the Spencer Davis Group
. (Mason's rhythm guitar is conspicuously out of sync with the rest of the band for about a minute of "Gimme Some Lovin'".)
In the band's native United Kingdom, the album was a surprise flop, the first in a series of albums by the group that would fail to make an appearance in the charts. In the USA, however, it was a solid success, hitting number 26 in the charts and yielding the single "Gimmie Some Lovin' (live)", which reached number 68 in the Billboard Hot 100
.
Although regarded as a Traffic album, it was originally released without the name "Traffic" anywhere on it; credited instead to the seven individual musicians. Nonetheless the Traffic logo appeared on the cover (on the back, in this case) as on all of their albums. Most later issues retain the original front cover with its individual crediting, but credit the album to Traffic on the spine.
, with a quartet lineup of Steve Winwood, Chris Wood, Jim Capaldi, and Ric Grech. In November, the group played a series of concerts at the Fillmore East
, and recordings from these concerts were compiled into a live album consisting of "Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring", "Glad", "Pearly Queen", "40,000 Headmen
", "Dear Mr. Fantasy
", and "Can't Find My Way Home
". This album was set for release in early 1971 but cancelled for unknown reasons, though Side A eventually appeared as bonus tracks on the 1999 reissue of John Barleycorn Must Die.
By the time of their next tour, Traffic has expanded with the additions of Dave Mason, Jim Gordon, and Reebop Kwaku Baah. The band only played six dates before Mason departed, two of which - their opening performance at Fairfield Hall, Croyden and a London benefit for Oz
- were recorded and mixed to become Welcome to the Canteen.
accused most of the songs of the album of being "near duplicates" of the studio recordings, but commented that the strong performances of the musicians mostly makes up for it. They were far more laudatory towards the last two tracks, "Dear Mr. Fantasy"("Eleven swirling, blending, building, wondrous minutes of "Fantasy" with Winwood as pensive/yearning/mournful as ever") and "Gimmie Some Lovin'" ("From an all-time great three-minute single to a nine minute eternal experience"). Allmusic's retrospective review was even more enthusiastic, saying the album "proved how good a contractual obligation album could be... the playing was exemplary, and the set list was an excellent mixture of old Traffic songs and recent Mason favorites."
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
by English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
rock band Traffic
Traffic (band)
Traffic were an English rock band whose members came from the West Midlands. The group formed in April 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason...
. It was recorded live at Fairfield Halls
Fairfield Halls
Fairfield Hall is an arts centre in Croydon, London, England and opened in 1962. It contains a concert hall, the Ashcroft Theatre , the Arnhem Gallery civic hall and an art gallery....
, Croydon
Croydon
Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...
and the Oz Benefit Concert, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, July 1971 and released in September of that year. It was recorded during Dave Mason
Dave Mason
David Thomas "Dave" Mason is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Worcester, who first found fame with the rock band Traffic...
's third stint with the band, which lasted only six performances.
The tracklist includes one song each from the first three Traffic albums; two songs from Mason
Dave Mason
David Thomas "Dave" Mason is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Worcester, who first found fame with the rock band Traffic...
's first solo album, Alone Together; and "Gimme Some Lovin'
Gimme Some Lovin'
"Gimme Some Loving" is a song written by Steve Winwood, Spencer Davis and Muff Winwood, and originally performed by The Spencer Davis Group. The basic riff of the song was borrowed from the Homer Banks song " A Lot of Love", written by Banks and Willie Dean "Deanie" Parker. The song was a UK #2 in...
" from Steve Winwood
Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English international recording artist whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is a songwriter and a musician whose genres include soul music , R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz...
's former band, the Spencer Davis Group
Spencer Davis Group
The Spencer Davis Group was a mid-1960s British beat group from Birmingham, England, formed by Spencer Davis with Steve Winwood and his brother Muff Winwood...
. (Mason's rhythm guitar is conspicuously out of sync with the rest of the band for about a minute of "Gimme Some Lovin'".)
In the band's native United Kingdom, the album was a surprise flop, the first in a series of albums by the group that would fail to make an appearance in the charts. In the USA, however, it was a solid success, hitting number 26 in the charts and yielding the single "Gimmie Some Lovin' (live)", which reached number 68 in the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
.
Although regarded as a Traffic album, it was originally released without the name "Traffic" anywhere on it; credited instead to the seven individual musicians. Nonetheless the Traffic logo appeared on the cover (on the back, in this case) as on all of their albums. Most later issues retain the original front cover with its individual crediting, but credit the album to Traffic on the spine.
Background
In 1970, Traffic toured in support of their comeback album John Barleycorn Must DieJohn Barleycorn Must Die
John Barleycorn Must Die is the fourth album by the English rock band Traffic, released in 1970, on Island Records in the United Kingdom, and United Artists in the United States, catalogue UAS 5504. It peaked at number 5 on the Billboard 200, their highest charting album in the US, and has been...
, with a quartet lineup of Steve Winwood, Chris Wood, Jim Capaldi, and Ric Grech. In November, the group played a series of concerts at the Fillmore East
Fillmore East
The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City. It was open from 1968 to 1971, and featured some of the biggest acts in rock music at the time...
, and recordings from these concerts were compiled into a live album consisting of "Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring", "Glad", "Pearly Queen", "40,000 Headmen
40,000 Headmen
"Roamin' Thro' the Gloamin with 40,000 Headmen" , written by Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, was first recorded by Traffic in 1967 or 1968. It was initially released as B-side to the "No Face, No Name, No Number" single in 1968 and also appears on their second album Traffic...
", "Dear Mr. Fantasy
Dear Mr. Fantasy
"Dear Mr. Fantasy" is a rock song by Traffic from their 1967 album, Mr. Fantasy. An extended live version of the song also appears on the 1971 Traffic album Welcome to the Canteen...
", and "Can't Find My Way Home
Can't Find My Way Home
The New York No Wave band Swans version of "Can't Find My Way Home" appeared on their 1989 album The Burning World and was also released as a single.- Track listing :# "Can't Find My Way Home"...
". This album was set for release in early 1971 but cancelled for unknown reasons, though Side A eventually appeared as bonus tracks on the 1999 reissue of John Barleycorn Must Die.
By the time of their next tour, Traffic has expanded with the additions of Dave Mason, Jim Gordon, and Reebop Kwaku Baah. The band only played six dates before Mason departed, two of which - their opening performance at Fairfield Hall, Croyden and a London benefit for Oz
Oz (magazine)
Oz was first published as a satirical humour magazine between 1963 and 1969 in Sydney, Australia and, in its second and better known incarnation, became a "psychedelic hippy" magazine from 1967 to 1973 in London...
- were recorded and mixed to become Welcome to the Canteen.
Reception
Rolling StoneRolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
accused most of the songs of the album of being "near duplicates" of the studio recordings, but commented that the strong performances of the musicians mostly makes up for it. They were far more laudatory towards the last two tracks, "Dear Mr. Fantasy"("Eleven swirling, blending, building, wondrous minutes of "Fantasy" with Winwood as pensive/yearning/mournful as ever") and "Gimmie Some Lovin'" ("From an all-time great three-minute single to a nine minute eternal experience"). Allmusic's retrospective review was even more enthusiastic, saying the album "proved how good a contractual obligation album could be... the playing was exemplary, and the set list was an excellent mixture of old Traffic songs and recent Mason favorites."
Track listing
- "Medicated Goo" (Jimmy Miller, Steve WinwoodSteve WinwoodStephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English international recording artist whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is a songwriter and a musician whose genres include soul music , R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz...
) – 3:34 - "Sad and Deep as You" (Dave MasonDave MasonDavid Thomas "Dave" Mason is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Worcester, who first found fame with the rock band Traffic...
) – 3:48 - "Forty Thousand Headmen40,000 Headmen"Roamin' Thro' the Gloamin with 40,000 Headmen" , written by Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, was first recorded by Traffic in 1967 or 1968. It was initially released as B-side to the "No Face, No Name, No Number" single in 1968 and also appears on their second album Traffic...
" (Jim CapaldiJim CapaldiNicola James "Jim" Capaldi was an English musician and songwriter. His musical career lasted more than four decades. He co-founded Traffic in Birmingham with Steve Winwood, and the band's psychedelic rock was influential in Britain and the United States...
, Winwood) – 6:21 - "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave" (Mason) – 5:39
- "Dear Mr. FantasyDear Mr. Fantasy"Dear Mr. Fantasy" is a rock song by Traffic from their 1967 album, Mr. Fantasy. An extended live version of the song also appears on the 1971 Traffic album Welcome to the Canteen...
" (Capaldi, Winwood, Chris WoodChris Wood (rock musician)Christopher Gordon Blandford 'Chris' Wood was a founding member of the English rock band Traffic, along with Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, and Dave Mason....
) – 10:57 - "Gimme Some Lovin'Gimme Some Lovin'"Gimme Some Loving" is a song written by Steve Winwood, Spencer Davis and Muff Winwood, and originally performed by The Spencer Davis Group. The basic riff of the song was borrowed from the Homer Banks song " A Lot of Love", written by Banks and Willie Dean "Deanie" Parker. The song was a UK #2 in...
" (Spencer DavisSpencer DavisSpencer David Nelson Davis is a British musician and multi-instrumentalist, and the founder of the 1960s rock band, the Spencer Davis Group.-Early life:...
, Winwood, Muff WinwoodMuff WinwoodMervyn "Muff" Winwood is an English songwriter and record producer, and the older brother of Steve Winwood. Both were formerly members of the Spencer Davis Group in the 1960s, in which Muff Winwood played bass guitar...
) – 9:02
Personnel
- Steve WinwoodSteve WinwoodStephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English international recording artist whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is a songwriter and a musician whose genres include soul music , R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz...
– lead vocals (except on "Sad and Deep as You" and "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave"), organOrgan (music)The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
, electric pianoElectric pianoAn electric piano is an electric musical instrument.Electric pianos produce sounds mechanically and the sounds are turned into electrical signals by pickups. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument, but electro-mechanical. The earliest electric pianos were invented...
, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with... - Chris WoodChris Wood (rock musician)Christopher Gordon Blandford 'Chris' Wood was a founding member of the English rock band Traffic, along with Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, and Dave Mason....
– saxSaxophoneThe saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
, fluteFluteThe flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, electric piano, organ - Jim CapaldiJim CapaldiNicola James "Jim" Capaldi was an English musician and songwriter. His musical career lasted more than four decades. He co-founded Traffic in Birmingham with Steve Winwood, and the band's psychedelic rock was influential in Britain and the United States...
– tambourineTambourineThe tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
, percussionPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
, backing vocalsBacking vocalistA backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...
on "Medicated Goo" - Dave MasonDave MasonDavid Thomas "Dave" Mason is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Worcester, who first found fame with the rock band Traffic...
- lead vocals on "Sad and Deep as You" and "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave", lead guitarLead guitarLead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
, acoustic guitarAcoustic guitarAn acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound... - Jim GordonJim Gordon (musician)James Beck "Jim" Gordon is an American recording artist, musician and songwriter. The Grammy Award winner was one of the most requested session drummers in the late 1960s and 1970s, recording albums with many well-known musicians of the time, and was the drummer in the blues-rock supergroup Derek...
– drums - Rebop Kwaku BaahRebop Kwaku BaahAnthony "Reebop" Kwaku Baah was a Ghanaian percussionist perhaps best known for working with the 1970s rock groups Traffic and Can.-Biography:...
– congas, timbalesTimbalesTimbales are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing, invented in Cuba. They are shallower in shape than single-headed tom-toms, and usually much higher tuned...
, bongoBongo drumBongo or bongos are a Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of single-headed, open-ended drums attached to each other. The drums are of different size: the larger drum is called in Spanish the hembra and the smaller the macho...
s - Ric GrechRic GrechRichard Roman Grech was a British rock musician.-Career:Grech originally gained notice in the United Kingdom as the bass guitar player for the progressive rock group Family. He joined the band when it was a largely blues-based live act in Leicester known as the Farinas; he became their bassist in...
– electric bass