John Mayall's Blues Breakers, Traffic 4/6/1967
Santa Monica Civic, General Seating

The Bluesbreakers were formed in the early 1960s with an ever-evolving lineup.
Eric Clapton joined in 1965 just a few months after the release of their first album. Clapton brought the blues influences to the forefront of the group, as he had left The Yardbirds in order to play the blues (record; 'John Mayall's Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton', a.k.a. 'The Beano Album').
The group lost their record contract with Decca that year, which also saw the release of a single called "I'm Your Witchdoctor", followed by a return to Decca in 1966. Bluesbreakers, a full length album, was released later that year; it reached the Top Ten in the UK.

Clapton and Jack Bruce left the group that year to form Cream. Clapton was replaced by Peter Green for A Hard Road, after which he left to form Fleetwood Mac. Finally, in 1969, the third Bluesbreaker-guitar virtuoso left the group that made him famous when Mick Taylor
joined The Rolling Stones.
By the time the 1960s were over, the Bluesbreakers had finally achieved some success in the United States. With some interruptions, the Bluesbreakers have continued to tour and release albums (over 50 to date), though they never achieved the critical or popular acclaim of their earlier material. In 2003, John Mayall celebrated at his 70th Birthday Concert. In 2004, their line up included Buddy Whittington, Joe Yuele, Hank Van Sickle and Tom Canning, and the band toured the UK with Mick Taylor as a guest musician.

In many ways, the original Traffic was a sort of British counterpart to Buffalo Springfield. Both groups got together in 1967, both released three albums, both titled their third albums to intentionally be their last, both enjoyed multiple singer/songwriters, both had talented multi-instrumentalists (both of whom were named “Steve”), both made excellent music, and both had members who went on to greater fame and fortune as parts of super groups.

You can read the details about Buffalo Springfield on their page. In the case of Traffic, their third album was entitled Last Exit. The original group consisted of Dave Mason on vocals and guitar, Steve Winwood on vocals, keyboards, guitars and bass guitar, Chris Wood on flute and saxophone, and Jim Capaldi on drums. Dave Mason composed songs on his own, while Winwood, Wood and Capaldi often collaborated with each other on their compositions. Mason and Winwood both sang lead vocals, generally on their respective compositions.

As with Buffalo Springfield, Traffic had an abundance of talent, and this was reflected on their albums, especially their self-titled second one. Listeners enjoyed lots of variety in style and pacing of the songs, vocals, and instrumentation. Unfortunately, as with Buffalo Springfield, there was not enough cohesion to keep all this talent together for more than a few albums. Dave Mason struck out on his own, much like Neil Young with the Springfield. Winwood left briefly to become part of Blind Faith, along with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker (2/3 of Cream).

The group eventually reformed, and continued to record and tour under the Traffic name, but never with the original group's same richness of talent. It was a stretch for the three remaining original band members to compose enough quality material for each album. Partly in order to compensate for this deficiency, the group evolved a recording style that included lots of loose, jazzy improvisation, and eventually included other players so that they could duplicate this sound on stage. While the best of this material was pretty good, it was not nearly as much fun as their original work.

The original configuration of Traffic had a unique sound. They lived communally in a cottage in Berkshire, England, and the resulting music reflected this democratic spirit of collaboration. The band's oft-expressed motto was “to sound like the same group but never to sound the same,” and they generally succeeded in this ambition. Lyrically, they were innovative. Their first three albums had the notable distinction of not containing a single cut that could be mistaken for a love song. Instead, they sang about failed relationships (“Feelin' Alright”), dream-like allegories (“Forty Thousand Headmen”), and the foibles of their contemporaries (“Medicated Goo”).

Every composition was distinctive, and their recordings were equally creative. Like The Beatles, the group had a sense of spatial composition while recording. They had the courage to leave enough space in their music to contain abundant instrumental coloring. Their unusual instrumentation, relying heavily on Winwood's organ and Wood's flute, gave their recordings a jazzy sound, yet the music was always in support of the song, and never simply there to impress or to fill out the track. Although I've compared them to Buffalo Springfield, they were also like The Band in their ability to use a variety of unusual instruments, their focus on making each track a unique recording, and their insistence on fashioning each track around the particular characteristics of a specific song.

The group was not afraid to sound quirky or idiosyncratic, and while this resulted in some dispensable nonsense on their first album, it also gave them the freedom to express an unusually broad range of feelings and images.

The group's first two albums benefited from the production talents of Jimmy Miller, who was also working with such notables as The Rolling Stones during this same period, and with equal success. Miller had a wonderful talent for layering instruments on a recording in such a way that each could be clearly and distinctly heard, yet complementing each other so as to make the whole much greater than the sum of the parts. His production strengths were a perfect match for the instrumental
abilities of the group.