A rock band from Birmingham, England, formed in early 1967 by Steve Winwood with Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason.
Winwood had become friends with his future band mates in the latter days of the Spencer Davis Group (which also hailed from Birmingham) and Capaldi, Wood and Mason are reputed to have performed (uncredited) on at least two Spencer Davis Group singles, I'm A Man and Gimme Some Lovin'. The four musicians often jammed together at a club called The Elbow Room in Aston, Birmingham.
With Mason and Capaldi eager to form a new group, Winwood agreed to join the partnership along with Wood and the four retreated to a secluded cottage in Berkshire to rehearse.
Their first official recordings together were made for the soundtrack of the 1967 film Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush.
Traffic signed to Chris Blackwell's Island Records (of which Winwood's elder brother Muff later became an executive) and their debut single Paper Sun was a UK hit in mid-1967.
The second single, Mason's psych-pop classic Hole in My Shoe, was an even bigger hit and became one of their best-known tracks, but it set the stage for increasing friction between Winwood and Mason, the group's principal songwriters.
Their debut album was Mr. Fantasy which, like the singles, was a hit in the UK but not in the US or elsewhere.
Mason left the group shortly before the release of Mr. Fantasy. During the time without Mason, Winwood had to play bass pedals in addition to playing keyboard and singing when the group performed live. The group also had difficulty maintaining a well-rounded repertoire of songs without Mason's strong songwriting ability.
Mason rejoined the band for their second album, Traffic, released in 1968. The band began touring the US in late 1968, which led to the 1969 release of their next album, Last Exit, with one side recorded live. During the tour, Mason was fired and Winwood announced the band's breakup.
Winwood formed Blind Faith with Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Ric Grech which lasted only a year. During this period Winwood, Wood and Mason also contributed to the sessions for the landmark Jimi Hendrix double-album Electric Ladyland (1968).
After the split of Blind Faith in 1969, Winwood began working on a solo recording which eventually turned into another Traffic album (without Mason), John Barleycorn Must Die, their most successful album yet.
Traffic went on to expand its lineup in 1971, adding Ric Grech on bass, drummer Jim Gordon of Derek and the Dominos and percussionist Rebop Kwaku Baah.
The live album Welcome to the Canteen was released in September and marked the band's break with United Artists. It did not bear the Traffic name on the cover, but instead was credited to the band's individual members including Mason, returning for his third and final spell with the band. Mason played two songs from his recent solo album, Alone Together, and the album ended with a cover of the Spencer Davis Group song, Gimme' Some Lovin'.
Following the departure of Mason, Traffic released The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, an American hit that did not chart in the UK.
Once again, personnel problems hit the band as Capaldi began a solo career and Grech and Gordon left the band.
Following Winwood's recovery from a long case of peritonitis, Traffic's sixth studio album Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory was another hit, recorded in 1973 with drummer Roger Hawkins and bassist David Hood taking Gordon's and Grech's former spots.
When the Eagle Flies (1974) included bassist Rosko Gee.
After this Traffic disbanded. Gee and Baah joined German band Can.
Capaldi and Winwood reunited as Traffic in 1994 for a one-off tour, and they recorded and released an album of all-new material Far From Home, but it was made without Chris Wood, who had died in 1983 from alcohol-related causes. The flute/sax role on the tour was played by Randall Bramblett, who had never been a member of Traffic but had worked extensively with Winwood. The bass player for the tour was Gee. Michael McEvoy joined the line up playing keyboards, guitar and viola and Walfredo Reyes Jr. played drums and percussion.
Tentative plans for another Traffic project were cut short by Capaldi's death at age 60 in January 2005, ending the songwriting partnership with Winwood that had fuelled Traffic from its beginning.