I’m really enjoying making my way through the 1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
I’m listening to everything from heavy metal, to 50s jazz, to 90s grunge, and I’ve been lucky to already hit a lot of albums from my favourite musical decade: the 70s.
One of the things I like to do is read the wikipedia page on the album before I listen to it. It’s always helpful to put the album in context.
One of the albums I listened to this month was Steve Winwood’s ‘Arc of a Diver’. The thing that stood out to me was Steve “played all the instruments, wrote all the music, and produced and engineered it himself.”
Steve has the credits for: lead and backing vocals, pianos, synthesizers, organ, acoustic guitar, electric guitars, mandolin, bass, drums, percussion, drum machine, production, engineering, mixing.
And when I listened to the opening track, While You See A Chance, I was floored that a single person in 1980 could produce the entire thing solo.
There’s a reason why musicians often write songs together—it’s much easier to write a song when you can build on each other’s ideas and energy. So I’m super impressed when a musician has the vision and perspective to pull something off by themselves.
Hope you enjoy listening to the tune as much as I did!