Steve Winwood Songs Ranked
Stephen Lawrence Winwood (born 12 May 1948) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician whose genres include progressive rock, blue-eyed soul, rhythm and blues, blues rock, pop-rock, and jazz. Though primarily a vocalist and keyboard player, Winwood also plays a wide variety of other instruments; on several of his solo albums he has played all instrumentation, including drums, mandolin, guitars, bass, and saxophone. inwood has won two Grammy Awards. He was nominated twice for a Brit Award for Best British Male Artist: 1988 and 1989. In 2011 he received the Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors for Outstanding Song Collection. Here are all of Steve Winwood’s songs ranked.
Don’t miss out on the memorable music of Steve Winwood below! Click to enjoy the songs from his solo career!
12. Gimme Some Lovin’ (Presence of the Lord, 2007)
“A classic. I heard in a movie and I had to put it on my playlist, I’m sure I have on a CD somewhere. Music is hip, gets you moving and the lyrics are great. It has the best intro and the organ, yeah.”
11. One and Only Man (One and Only Man, 1990)
“I’ve tried so hard to make myself believe this was a return to form, or at least a sign of recovery, way back then. The quality of material is certainly a bit better than on “Roll with it”, but with “One and only Man” being the best track here”
10. Talking Back to the Night (Talking Back to the Night, 1982)
“Steve Winwood is a very good multi instrumentalist and this is predominantly eighties synth pop. He does a very good job of it as anyone who has ever heard his eighties output could certainly attest to.”
9. Holding On (Roll with It, 1988)
“More pseudo-soul-Rock from Stevie, but for some reason, everything hits me exactly right here. The horn line is great, the verses have a good urgency to them, and the chorus gets me singing along. I have no idea why it works on me here and not elsewhere.”
See more: Steve Winwood Albums Ranked
8. Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do? (Roll with It, 1988)
“The song got a lot of grief for being attached to a Michelob commercial, but I don’t recall actually seeing said commercial. The song itself was agreeably atmospheric, but not exactly a highlight of his career. In other words, it kinda sounded like a beer commercial.”
7. Back in the High Life Again (Back in the High Life, 1986)
“This is pretty much his top moment as a solo artist, he basically sounded like Peter Gabriel and it worked this one time. Before that he had some cool songs from the sixties that everyone and there blind, dog bowl drinking grandma knows.”
6. The Finer Things (Back in the High Life, 1986)
“Winwood’s album cuts have a tendency to be longer than they need to be, so I wouldn’t normally object to shaving off nearly two minutes of bloat. In this case, however, the radio edit’s truncation of the intro and deletion of the post-first-chorus synthesizer wank actually removes whatever semblance of a soul this song once had.”
See more: Traffic Albums Ranked
5. Valerie (Talking Back to the Night, 1982)
“Later filled out somewhat and re-released into the top ten. This earlier version has quite a bit more space in it, with Steve sounding like he’s making it up on the spot with his keyboard and drum machine. (As a side note, he sounds like he has a much better keyboard and drum machine than most people in 1982 had.) And much of my enjoyment of the song comes from that – he sounds like a slightly giddy kid, with just the right amount of yearning in his voice when he hits the high notes. Maybe he IS the same boy he used to be.”
4. Roll with It (Roll with It, 1988)
“Roll With It is OK. BIG 80’s drum sounds punctuating Winwood’s organ work. I liked Winwood better on Arc of a Diver when the drums weren’t so dominating. The B-side of this single is a gem. Here Winwood harkens back to his Traffic days.”
3. Freedom Overspill (Back in the High Life, 1986)
“Sandwiched between his other singles from the album, this one was a bit out there with its hazy imagery and art-film music video. Perhaps that’s why I still like this one more than the others.”
2. Higher Love (Back in the High Life, 1986)
“The producer brought in a guy to add percussion and stick work to this decent soul-pop tune. (This after recording it as a duet with Chaka Khan, and then wiping most of her vocals off due to label issues.) During the recording process, he decided “hey, this stuff would sound cool by itself to start off the track”. Simple ideas like this can elevate the pedestrian to the pretty damn good.”
1. While You See a Chance (Arc of a Diver, 1981)
“Steve Winwood probably deserved his 80’s commercial success as much as any of his fellow 60’s contemporaries, although it’s debatable whether anyone “sold out” as much as him in doing so. Within a year or two of getting high on the US charts with this fine single, he was happy to lend his music to Michelob beer commercials. That said, this is a gorgeous single, the intro welling up in similar fashion to EWF’s sublime “Star” before cascading into its lovely synth-driven melody.”
