JIM CAPALDI
DEAR MR FANTASTY
With the band Traffic Jim Capaldi made some wonderful and classic music of the 60s and 70s, and his solo records reflected his talents as a songwriter as well as a musician.
Words: Paul Sexton
He is perhaps most widely known as the drummer with Traffic, the band he co-founded in 1967, and thus for his crucial role in one of experimental rock’s prime exponents. But the switchback muse of the late Jim Capaldi took him to so many addresses and incarnations, that the recent digital release of one of his solo landmarks is the perfect time for an identity check.
Earlier this year, Island Records gave a longawaited online debut to one of the landmarks of Capaldi’s catalogue of a dozen-plus albums in his own name, 1975’s Short Cut Draw Blood. To existing admirers, the record is a returning friend, to newcomers it’s a window into a career that has become a little too easy to underrate. Six new deluxe heavyweight vinyl reissues, available individually from 2019’s Traffic – The Studio Albums 1967-74 box set, further correct the imbalance.
“Short Cut Draw
Blood
is
a
fitting
legacy
and
a
tribute
to
a
great
man.”
Steve Winwood
From loyal band man to solo hitmaker and philanthropist, from cherished friend and collaborator of the Winwoods, Claptons and Harrisons to award-winning songwriter, Jim Capaldi was a man of many roles. He starred in many of them, but that was never the point. Music itself sustained him, all the way until his sadly premature death at the age of 60, in 2005.
A measure of the love and respect that Capaldi engendered from his peers came in the line-up for the 2007 tribute concert Dear Mr. Fantasy, at London’s Roundhouse. Gathering to pay, and play, their respects were Pete Townshend, Paul Weller, Jon Lord, Cat Stevens, Gary Moore and of course Steve Winwood, among many others.
Short Cut Draw Blood is a splendid musical timepiece, and an admirable place for anyone to start their appreciation of a proud West Midlander who travelled the world. Recorded after the conclusion of Traffic’s initial history, it featured other former members of that venerated band in Rebop Kwaku Baah and, of course, Winwood, along with guest appearances by Paul Kossoff, Chris Spedding, Jess Roden and John ‘Rabbitt’ Bundrick.
The album, like so much of Capaldi’s catalogue, comfortably switched from pop to rock to jazz and reggae flavours, stopping off for a couple of hit singles along the way: a minor one in the gentle It’s All Up To You, and a big success with a cover of the deathless Love Hurts, which was in the UK top five at the same time as Bohemian Rhapsody.
For a man raised on the glorious 45s of the pre- Beatles American pop of Roy Orbison, whose version he adored, it was an unexpected pleasure.
It was listening to that album again that caused me to muse on how many times Capaldi had been part of not just my musical education, but also my working life. I interviewed him in person twice, firstly following the release of his 1988 album Some Come Running, then with Winwood when they reunited under the Traffic name for 1994’s Far From Home and the ensuing tour.