Steve Winwood – Luck’s In YouTube

Most people think “Arc Of A Diver” is Steve Winwood’s first solo album.

But it’s not.

But not only is this first, eponymous LP unknown by most, it’s not even on streaming services. Why, I’m not sure. But I purchased it, and loved two tracks, “Time Is Running Out” and “Luck’s In.”

Winwood never disappointed me. As a matter of fact, I was a big fan of “When The Eagle Flies,” after the disappointment of “Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory.” At the time I was on the road, itinerant, changing residences every couple of months, and without a stereo I depended upon the radio, and that was back when they played songs from all your heroes, at least for a while, irrelevant of AM crossover possibility.

And there were two on FM from “When The Eagle Flies” that I heard regularly, “Walking In The Wind” and “Something New.”

Now “Something New” blew the carbon off the valves of what came before. I mean writing a track “(Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired”? Sounds like you were on deadline and burned out and you were delivering something to satisfy the record company. Somehow the jauntiness of the early, pre-breakup LPs had been forgotten, but “Something New” returned it. There was no long introduction, the song started off on a tear, and Winwood was going up and down the scale, you couldn’t help but feel good listening to it.

“Luck’s In” was a little darker. And I wouldn’t quite call it jaunty, but Winwood went up and down the scale the same way, as soon as he started to sing, you were enraptured.

Some people get lonely, while some people get blue
But nobody can tell you just what you should do

It’s not science, it’s not mathematics, despite eons no one has the solution to heartbreak, to depression.

But like “Something New,” there was an unexpected change, a left turn in the song that was not predictable, adding to its charm and its ingratiation.

You hold the key in the palm of your hand, my love

Whoa, this isn’t a depressed song really, there’s a hint of optimism.

There’s something about you, I don’t know what you got
But you and me girl, we’re gonna give it a shot

It’s hard to define love, how it happens. Oh, you can be infatuated with someone, be in love with a picture, but that’s very different from interacting and feeling the mutuality, the connection, when you know they’re into you just like you’re into them, that’s really when you feel like your luck’s in, that like Lou Gehrig, you’re the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

I think it’s amazing just what you can do
When somebody wants you and their love is true

Whew! We’re all looking to be wanted. Especially when we come from broken homes, or when we’re emotionally abandoned, even if both of our parents are in residence. You’re looking for this from a young age, even if you can’t put words to it.

And you can’t plan it, you can’t plot it out on paper, you just drift through the world and suddenly it hits you. Then again, you’ve got to interact, you’ve got to get out in the world to have it happen, which can be hard in this virtual, digital age where there’s so much action at home, when you’ve been burned so many times before.

If you saw my love
Then you’d know what I mean
She’s the only one
That makes this world like a dream

Love is like having a baby. Even though it happens regularly, when it happens to you you think you’re the first one to ever experience it. It’s the definition of feeling alive.

And after three minutes, the vocals disappear, it becomes an instrumental track. And just when you think it’s gonna stay the same and fade out, at 3:30 it changes, hits a different plane, and there’s percussion, and you’re wondering what happened to the couple. After testifying Winwood and his love have departed, they’re living their lives, having an adventure, we can hear the mood, but we can’t see the details, they’re off on their own, like every couple in love in the history of the world.

We’re all waiting ’til our luck’s in.

Only in America can you shoot and beat-up people with impunity.

To tell you the truth, those in power see African-Americans and Latinos as THOSE people and refuse to bring justice to these communities, like the police in Rio refuse to go into the favelas.

Now A$AP never should have been held this long without being charged. That’s truly anti-American…or is it? How about all those prisoners in Guantanamo who haven’t been charged, never mind brought to trial? The United States used to be a paragon of fairness, however imperfect, it was the standard the rest of the world looked up to, but no longer.

No, I’m not saying the United States is not the greatest country in the world, but it’s pretty damn good in Scandinavia, and there’s a great safety net and…call it socialism, call it whatever you want, but go there and see if people complain.

But there are certain taboos in other countries, like beating people up. Never mind lying about it.

In the U.S. justice system, where everybody’s entitled to an advocate and a defense, some of the theories proffered in pursuit of innocence are truly head-spinning. They usually don’t succeed, but they permeate the news, making citizens believe there’s no justice and that the rich and powerful experience a different legal system. And that’s true, the average person can’t afford a defense that can obfuscate the crime and get the offender off with a lighter sentence, if not complete exculpation. Hell, isn’t this the story with Jeffrey Epstein?

So, A$AP and his posse go to Sweden and beat-up a couple of people, and say that it was their fault.

Only one problem, THERE WERE CAMERAS!

You want to commit white collar crime these days, and you don’t want a paper trail, which is why many execs won’t email or text, they’ll just talk in person or on the phone, they want no paper trail.

Whereas the hoi polloi, shooting people, beating people up, robbing people… In the U.K. they’ve got cameras everywhere, they got footage of those Russians in town, there to poison that spy. But what did Putin do? DENY, DENY, DENY! Speaking of criminals…

Now do you want a society where you can go around beating people up willy-nilly, getting away with it scot-free? I don’t think so, no matter what community you live in.

But too often you can get away with it in the States, where the cameras are not quite as ubiquitous.

But all of A$AP’s famous friends come out in support, wanting him set free, like Justin Bieber, an uneducated nitwit who tweets “But while your at it” That’s what happens when you don’t get an education, when you tat yourself up and find yourself washed-up with the rest of your life to live. You’re a star today, you’re a joke in the supermarket not long thereafter. And I blame the parents, they should say no. Hell, I dreamed of being on TV when I was a kid, not that there was an opportunity, but now I see what a bad path that is, I’m lucky my parents insisted that I get an education.

And there’s an argument as to whether A$AP Rocky’s arrest was racially motivated, but…just because someone’s an African-American, does that mean they didn’t do it?

As for the Swedes incarcerating him… They’ve got a different system, they hold you and they investigate, especially if you’re a flight risk. And of course A$AP is, why in hell would he go back to Sweden?

And I don’t agree with this system, charge someone immediately and hold them or let them go. But it’s not like they wrote the rules just to hold A$AP, and when you go to another country you’ve got to respect their laws, just like when you go to someone else’s house for dinner!

But unlike in the U.S., A$AP is going to get a prompt trial, supposedly lasting three days, starting next week, as opposed to charged defendants in the U.S. waiting months or years for a trial in the U.S., oftentimes incarcerated all the while.

I think even if found guilty, A$AP should be immediately released. He’s already paid for his crime by being in jail for weeks. As for a fine, doesn’t bother me one way or the other, same deal with whether he can come back to Sweden or not.

But this illustrates pugilistic behavior will not be tolerated around the world, no matter how famous you are, and that the U.S. doesn’t have complete power over the rest of the world, and everything does not go the way our President and our celebrities want it to.

Meanwhile, Bad Bunny cancels European dates to come home and protest with the people against the Governor of Puerto Rico, and then the Governor resigns. Music has power, let’s use it in the right ways.

I don’t care if you’re a fan of Dave or not, you should listen to this podcast. To hear how a middle class boy from the Valley, with a dermatologist father and a cookie-baking mother, made it in music. How he picked up the saxophone to be in his brother’s band and didn’t decide to turn professional until after graduating from UCLA. Dave got a gig with Bobby Caldwell, who insisted Dave “perform” during his solo, engendering Koz’s active stage show, and then Jeff Lorber not only hired him for his band, he helped him make demos to get a record deal.

Dave’s weathered the changes. The soft jazz WAVE format was burgeoning when he began and eventually faded. Dave toured relentlessly and then started his own cruises long before that became de rigueur. In other words, Dave Koz pivoted, and has found his way in the twenty first century by being in the Dave Koz business. And he lives to collaborate, hell, he’s even played with the Foo Fighters!

And in today’s newspaper, there’s a review of the new Tarantino movie that reveals all the plot points, which bugs me, that’s why we go to the movies, for the plot! So I feel anxious about revealing details about Dave’s performance, but I truly want you to listen. Too often you can’t relate to the star’s circumstances, and frequently they can barely get their story across.

But not Dave.

Listen:

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We were space-crazy.

Sure, JFK promised we’d go to the moon, but no one really took this seriously until Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth.

This was the era of the cold war. There was supposedly nothing worse than living in the U.S.S.R. They oppressed people, their economy was challenged…so how in the hell did they beat us, not only going into space first, but completing an orbit and landing on…LAND?

This was positively scary. Kinda like today, but totally different. Today we’re worried about nationalism, the division of countries, the disdain for immigrants and science, yesterday we were worried about the Russkis taking over the world.

Now by time the U.S. put a man in space, it was Alan Shepard, and he didn’t even fly around the Earth. Shortly thereafter, the U.S.S.R. put a man in space for an entire day! It wasn’t until almost a year after Gagarin that we had our own astronaut flying around the earth, three times, and that man was John Glenn. The first is always a hero.

And then we were off to the races. We followed space like you follow the internet. Only there was much less information. There was much less information on everything in the sixties, which is why everybody knew about the war, and the protests could get notice.

But then came Gemini! Two men in space at the same time! At this point we knew the routine, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo.

Now I’m not saying every Gemini flight garnered the attention of the first, but it was on TV. The last Apollo flight was not, by then it was de rigueur, after you’ve been to the moon…

But we were still building the blocks.

So we had space food. Not only Tang, but Space Sticks, which were kind of like circular energy bars, which tasted even worse! They came in packets, you had to keep them fresh. And we had space blankets. All innovation seemed to be coming from the space program.

And then, we had the fire.

I remember exactly where I was when the news came over the radio, driving on Route 30, in Vermont, just after Maple Valley, with the river on the right. How could this happen? We were accustomed to winning, it was up, up and up, but now…

And I remember the story being pure oxygen. And I remember the delay in future space flights. But then, we were going to the moon, in July ’69. Kennedy might have been dead, but his promise was going to be fulfilled.

1969. The Miracle Mets. Woodstock. The moon landing. Despite the turmoil, that was the era of can-do. America was indomitable. If we put our minds to something, it happened. And the protests were about equality for African-Americans, and the ending of an unjust, unwinnable war. We wanted a better America, and we got one. Even though the old white men won a lot too. And they were white, and they were men and they were old.

So we knew the date of the moon landing long before. Well, the mission, not the exact dates of the landing and the walk. We were prepared.

At this point, we only watched when it was a breakthrough. The first Gemini. But walking on the moon? That seemed positively unfathomable.

Now I was living in Chicago, in a frat house on the University of Chicago campus. It was a deal I made with my parents, I would go to Mitzvah Corps if I could go to summer ski camp in Squaw Valley first. They agreed, they had to get rid of me, they were going to Europe, it was an annual event since I was in the first grade, when they left us with a woman we didn’t like and my mother came back with my first watch, but even then I knew they’d bought it at the airport. But I did love that Timex.

Mitzvah Corps. Even sounds bad, right?

Summer ski camp was phenomenal. To a great degree unsupervised, which was new to me, at least when it related to camp, but a good chunk of our lives was unsupervised back then. Playdate? We’d never even heard of the term!

But then I had to go to Mitzvah Corps. To hang with nerds, I believed. But it was five girls and five boys and we hung together and it was run by a young rabbi who was in his twenties, as was his wife, and the guy who lived downstairs smoked dope and introduced me to Steve Miller and I don’t remember watching television at all until it came to the moonwalk.

We had a black and white TV. Even back then, it was akin to a CRT versus a flat screen today. Most people had color.

And it was about twenty inches big. With a curved screen, remember that?

And it was in the living room. There was a giant couch, which could sit about eight, and the rest of the group sat on the floor.

And it was interminable waiting. Nothing was happening. The commentator kept telling us they were getting ready, making sure all systems were go. All I knew was I was wearing my penny loafers, and my feet were so hot that I took them off and my feet smelled and I was worried about alienating the girl sitting next to me, who I had a crush on, but that’s another story.

And I didn’t know these people that well at this point. You see we all had different jobs, and were separated all day. Mine was to be a counselor on a schoolyard in south Chicago. I wouldn’t do that today! I’d walk with this woman… She was a nerd, and sensitive to seemingly everything, they paired her up with me when no one else wanted to go with her, and we walked to the train station, got on, long before the days of A/C, and then walked to the schoolyard. I remember walking to lunch at Burger King. There wasn’t another white person for miles, other than this girl. What was I thinking? Yes, today kids go on do-gooder trips for their college resumes, but they’re never at risk.

Another two guys were building inspectors. They took us to meet community organizers, not that they had that title, they knew Jesse Jackson and they wanted change and I felt like I was at the center of something. Could have been the first time I heard the word “rap,” or heard it used so much. This guy was talking about rapping to this person and that person.

But that was only one day. Normally I worked at the playground, on the asphalt, next to the school building. We played softball with a soft ball that required no gloves. And one day there was a rape on the fourth floor of the school, but once again, I was too young and inexperienced to recognize the consequences of that. And the big hit was James Brown’s “Popcorn,” which I’d never heard before, they even had a “Popcorn” dancing contest.

But now I was sitting on the couch waiting and waiting for Neil and Buzz to get out of that damn module.

And let’s be clear, we expected it all to go down smoothly, then again… They were leaving the module, they were on the moon, I’d seen enough “Twilight Zone” to know that things could go wrong.

And then Neil descends the ladder and steps on the moon and utters those fateful words. At the time, we didn’t know they were scripted. But thinking about it now, who would come up with “One small step for man, one giant step for mankind.” Of course I remember it, it was indelibly burned into my brain.

And then I remember Neil bouncing. We’d read for years about the lack of air, the difference in gravity, it was like a school experiment come alive. That was cool. But after watching them walk around a bit, it got boring. But you had to watch, because you knew this was an historical moment. We had a lot of those in the sixties, and not all bad.

And then it was over.

I remember being anxious about the module blasting off from the moon, worried they might get marooned there, but it went up no problem. But I’m not sure I watched that on TV. Back then there were no 24/7 news channels, nowhere to catch something if you missed it, you just read the newspaper, and the headlines were glorious, like this was the beginning of a new world.

And then days passed, the story fell off the front page, and we rarely talked about it, but we knew about it, even if I did see it in black and white. I was stunned, you mean you could really broadcast from the moon in color? Hell, just a few years earlier the big story was Telstar, and we watched a live TV show from Europe. Now we can Facetime with anybody around the world and don’t think much about it.

But after you go to the moon, then what?

1970 was a year of wound-licking, at least after Kent State. The seventies were about going back to the land. Spaceshots continued, but they were no longer the focus.

And then we had the O-ring disaster. Suddenly, Americans, our scientists, were fallible. The expert said not to go, but they did anyway. That’s men for you, expressing no caution, wanting the glory.

And then Christa McAuliffe burned up in that space shuttle fire. Just a school teacher, we thought space travel was as safe as car travel, probably more, the odds of a problem were nonexistent in our minds.

And then we stopped paying attention.

Hell, the space station was built by Russia. We were suddenly weak, and there was no money for NASA. It had achieved its mission and the mantra of the Republican Party was that taxes were bad and the government inefficient and wasteful and…

The computer revolution was quite something. Mostly made by kids inspired by the space program. But they were uncontrollable renegades. To both our benefit and our loss.

And now government can’t even understand science, at least not those in Congress.

And politics is tribal.

The greater good? We can’t even agree on that.

But despite all the dissension, we all marveled at the moonwalk back in ’69.

What did Don Henley sing?