Steve Winwood - 9 Lives (Sony BMG) ***
5:02pm Friday 9th May 2008
IT seems this is one (once-cool) cat who's still got a few lives to lose. Having powered the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic to the heights of hipness - and leaving an unacknowledged Britpop template in his wake - Steve Winwood went the way of many of his contemporaries in the 80s and 90s with a slew of bland rock gloss for wearers of grandad shirts.
His last album, About Time, suggested there was life in the old blues dog yet and the theme continues on 9 Lives where loose-limbed Creole funk and dustbowl folk rub along smoothly with African rhythms and gutsy blues-rock. In places (Dirty City, I'm Not Drowning) he sounds so like Paul Weller you're not sure if the master isn't borrowing from the pupil. No matter, Winwood is wearing it well.