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Steve Winwood - We're All Looking

The roots concept also has an ideological undertone. It implies that you can study at one culture with the light of history, while the other cultures are just roots to the former, a repository of stagnant, centuries old tradition. The concept insinuates that one continent is a provider of musical raw material to be processed somewhere else. Now to us in Africa, this is not acceptable. We are not roots to anyone.

Why is there nobody talking about the jazz roots of South African urban music, for example? Here, people prefer to speak of influences. I have discussed some of these questions with our guitarist and singer... who sings many blues in our jazz band in Malawi. He would never claim to be the roots or the source of anything, but simply explain how he became interested in jazz through his uncle... and how he is trying to create his own music.


Steve Winwood - We're All Looking
  • Released on: Nine Lives album
  • Released in: April 15, 2008
  • Written by: Peter Godwin

"Steve Winwood achieved fame during the 1960s and 1970s as an integral member of three major bands. During the 1980s, his solo career flourished and he had a number of hit singles. His 1986 album Back in the High Life marked his career zenith, with hit singles including Back in the High Life."

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