Jimmy Miller, producer of Traffic’s second album, in 1968, quipped in the liner notes that Jim Capaldi’s time is so perfect that even the drops of sweat falling from his brow keep the beat. A flawless time-keeper he is, but Capaldi is more: Though blessed with an ineluctable sense of swing (“but lacking in the technical department, ” he interjects), Capaldi’s talents as composer, vocalist, producer and creative catalyst are equally formidable. His innate sense of rhythm, demonstrated with the seminal but defunct British band Traffic and on six solo albums, springs from an active imagination and fierce determination. Born in 1944 in Evesham, England, to musical parents (his vocalist mother and accordionist father barnstormed Europe as the Macari Serenaders, performing Latin and Gypsy music), Capaldi fell under the spell of music at an early age. His earliest influences, ranging from Louis Bellson to Elvis Presley, would foreshadow his later […]

November 1984 Issue