Revolutions: The Very Best of Steve Winwood

Steve Winwood | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 8, 2010)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Island
• ASIN: B003J2QU1O
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,450 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Island Records/UMe will release the definitive career retrospective of one of the all-time greats of rock `n' roll on June 8, 2010. Entitled Revolutions - The Very Best Of Steve Winwood, it is a portrait of one of the most influential musicians in rock history, a singer-songwriter, peerless vocalist, guitarist and keyboard player.

With tracklistings personally selected by Steve Winwood from his five decade career, Revolutions - The Very Best Of Steve Winwood also includes a re-recorded version of "Spanish Dancer."

A child prodigy, Winwood first performed live on stage at the tender age of 8 in his father's traditional jazz band, and joined the Spencer Davis Group at 14. His stunning vocal style was compared to Ray Charles. He left Spencer Davis to form Traffic then later teamed up with Eric Clapton in Blind Faith at the tail-end of the Sixties. Arguably his biggest successes came with his solo work from the Seventies on.

In a career lasting nearly 50 years he has sold over 50 million albums and several of his songs have become standards, notably "Gimme Some Lovin'" (memorably covered in The Blues Brothers film), "Can't Find My Way Home," "The Low Spark Of The High Heeled Boys," "Higher Love" and "Roll With It."

He has been awarded multiple Grammy Awards - for "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "Higher Love" (a US no 1 in '86). In 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him number 33 in the 100 Best Singers Of All Time.

Steve Winwood will perform at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival on June 26 in Chicago followed by a U.S. tour with Santana.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Oh, Whatever...., July 12, 2010

By 

wildwielder (Macungie, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Revolutions: The Very Best of Steve Winwood (Audio CD)

I keep saying, greatest hits and best-of compilations are not for die-hard fans. When will they get this into their heads? Such albums are for casual listeners. So all these complaints about single edits vs. album cuts and minor, mostly-forgotten hits not being on the album are purely academic. I, for one, am quite pleased with this CD. Though I have great respect for Steve Winwood as a highly creative and true professional, the only Winwood album I have ever owned is Traffic's Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (which is a masterpiece, by the way). As such, all I have every really desired is a single or two-disk compilation with all of the hits I grew up hearing, especially Steve's solo stuff. I've waited a long time for this, as Chronicles cuts off before "Roll With It" and the first boxed set was much more than I wanted to own or pay for. And, as far as what I do want, this finally has it all!
True, "Valerie" is not the more familiar re-mix; but, as the liner notes state, that was only a "slight" re-mix. The difference to the casual listener is not significant enough to matter. As for the edit of "While You See a Chance", I never owned Arc of a Diver, so I am not familiar with the album cut. This is the version I know from radio play and it's all I wanted. And when it comes to the radio edits of "Spanish Dancer 2010" and "Dirty City"-- well, these songs are new to me, anyway, and not the reason I purchased this. But they are great tracks and I love them just as presented, so good enough. I do, though, agree that labeling "Low Spark..." as an edit when it clearly is not is a silly mistake, but a small one.
While I would have preferred a comp of all solo recordings so as to have more of a taste of this material beyond the hits as well as a more consistent listen, I do love having the two Spencer Davis Group hits and the really great Traffic songs included. And good call including a sample of something from Blind Faith. I didn't have any of these recordings (other than "Low Spark...") and I'm glad I do now.
I know Winwood's real fans would see people like me as having a shallow view. But, come on; we can't be a die-hard for every artist. There's no way we can own the complete catalogs of every artist out there who catches our attention. I am a hard-core fan of certain artists that I collect that way. Winwood's just not one of them. For us, comps like this are a great thing. If you are a die-hard, great, don't buy CD's like this one. They're redundant to your collection and not for you. But don't rain on the parade for the rest of us!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great retrospective of Winwood's long career, June 10, 2010

By 

caj - See all my reviews

This review is from: Revolutions: The Very Best of Steve Winwood (Audio CD)

I'm not a die-hard Steve Winwood fan, but have liked enough of his songs over the years to purchase this cd.

My cd had all 17 songs listed above. Although I didn't care for all of the older songs, Gimme Some Lovin' and Dear Mr Fantasy were favorites of mine and I'm so glad they were included.

Growing up in the 80s, I loved While You See a Chance, The Finer Things, Back in the High Life, Roll With It, and Don't You Know What the Nights Can Do.

Higher Love and Valerie were also nice songs, just not favorites. But they all sound good on this collection. I'm sure that some of the older songs will rub off on me the more I listen to it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Winwood - Revolutions, July 19, 2010

By 

Greg Wandelt - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Revolutions: The Very Best of Steve Winwood (Audio CD)

Very good collection of Steve Winwood's songs throughout his career. Even though I own a lot of these songs on different cd's, it's good to have them all in one place.