Steve Winwood's career emerges as a defining arc of audacious musical versatility and collaborative evolution.

Born in Birmingham, Steve Winwood was already a semi-professional musician, playing keyboards and guitar, while still at school. As lead vocalist with The Spencer Davis Group, he had had two chart-topping singles by the time he was aged eighteen. In 1967 he formed Traffic, long noted as one of the major British psychedelic groups whose music also borrowed from jazz and folk influences as well as rock and pop. A brief hiatus saw him join forces with Eric Clapton in the shortlived Blind Faith, thereafter returning to Traffic until they disbanded in 1974 (and briefly reformed twenty years later). Throughout his subsequent solo career, he has been much respected on both sides of the Atlantic as a vocalist, all-round musician and regular collaborator with or session player for other artists. This is the first biography for nearly thirty years.