very nice effort. i might have made room for freedom rider, walking in the wind, and dave mason's headkeeper.

I too love Freedom Rider but this is great as is!

some of this stuff are really excellent

Oh, yeah, I love it all, though I do fade out some of that noodling.


I love most stuff I hear from Dave and Stevie.


Alone Together is a fantastic album, so top-notch that even my hard-ass buddy Roberto (Fucking Anita) made sure I memorized every note.


I would say the best judge of Dave Mason, is that Dylan frequently quotes the one great tune of Dave's written by somebody else.

I think Can't Find My Way Home is one of my favorite songs in any genre, hippie or otherwise.

I've always considered buying a Traffic LP but never actually done so. I suppose I've been wary because praise has been rather reserved regarding their efforts, at least from critics this side of the pond, but maybe I'm reading the wrong critics. But Paper Sun is one of my favourite 60's songs and this mix may convince me to investigate more thoroughly.

This is great, Rob. Pretty much everything I would've included on a Traffic Best Of. Especially pleased to see Medicated Goo where Stevie's Steve Cropper impersonation shows what an excellent guitarist he is in addition to his vocal & keyboard prowess.
Maybe I would have tried to find room for "Vagabond Virgin" & something from Jim Capaldi's solo output -Eve perhaps but that's nit-picking.

I was always a big early traffic fan and then a little later that Barleycorn/Low Spark/Shoot Out trio was a soundtrack to a period of my life in the early 70s. Never listened much to later stuff or the SW 80s albums.

This is a great collection but I do miss Freedom Rider. BTW, just grabbed the new Steve Winwood album and I'm listening as I type. Very nice morning groove with some tea.

never been a big traffic fan, though my friend at the record store has been trying to force them on me for months - maybe this will finally give me the incentive to cave in....

Been a Traffic fan for 30 years, Dear Mr. Fantasy, John Barleycorn, Low Spark, Glad and Light Up... are all-time favs.

The Low Spark album was their high water mark, if you're asking me. So much was expected from Steve Winwood it seems he was doomed to somehow disappoint the critics.

Can't Find My Way Home is indeed a great track - is is pretty much all of this. I love Traffic ( and Spencer Davis Group, Blind Faith etc ). One Traffic I'm dissapointed not to see is 'Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush' - just a brilliant song to mine ears...

Missed this one. Great mix. I have fond associations with Traffic, and while I don't listen often (and when I do, it tends to be more in the background), I do love the occasional Traffic fix. Back in college in the 80's, there was a jammy/psychedelic cover band (called Yasgur's Farm) that played an outdoor show one Sunday afternoon each spring, and I still remember hearing "Low Spark" and "Freedom Rider" and being forever smitten. I've picked up all the reissues and was considering a mix myself, but the official Smiling Phases collection does such a nice job I didn't think it was worth it.
On your observations, let me just say:(a) I agree that "Can't Find My Way Home" is up there with anything Winwood ever did with Traffic [just as that album's "Presence of the Lord" is up there with anything Clapton ever did anywhere else -- though nothing else on the album is on the same plane as those 2 tunes]; and(b) While I agree that the last two albums (from the original period) were pretty listless, I think some of their jamminess was quite enjoyable, and I, for one, consider the oft-panned On The Road live album, with its meandering and sloppy jams, to be a great ride (though probably because it does the most to approximate the sound of that ol' cover band that turned me on to them in the first place).