Roots of Steve Winwood

Daniel Earl Hartman was an American pop rock musician. Among songs he wrote and recorded were "Free Ride" as a member of the Edgar Winter Group, and the solo hits "Relight My Fire", "Instant Replay", "I Can Dream About You", "We Are the Young" and "Second Nature". "I Can Dream About You", his most successful US hit, reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984. The James Brown song "Living in America", which Hartman co-wrote and produced, reached No. 4 on March 1, 1986.

Karl Denson is an American funk and jazz saxophonist, flutist and vocalist from Santa Ana, California. He plays with The Rolling Stones, and leads his own group, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe (KDTU). He co-founded The Greyboy Allstars (GBA), and continues to tour with both KDTU and GBA as well as The Rolling Stones. Formerly, Denson was a member of Lenny Kravitz's band and he has recorded with artists including Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Slightly Stoopid, Blind Boys of Alabama, Blackalicious, Stanton Moore, and Jon Foreman of the band Switchfoot. Denson appears in the 1988 movie Coming To America and in the 2021 sequel Coming 2 America as the saxophonist in the fictional band Sexual Chocolate.

Nicola James Capaldi was an English singer-songwriter and drummer. His musical career spanned more than four decades. He co-founded the progressive rock band Traffic in 1967 with Steve Winwood, and the two of them co-wrote the majority of the band's material. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a part of Traffic's original lineup.

"What'd I Say" is an American rhythm and blues song by Ray Charles, released in June 1959. As a single divided into two parts, it was one of the first soul songs. The composition was improvised one evening late in 1958 when Charles, his orchestra, and backup singers had played their entire set list at a show and still had time left; the response from many audiences was so enthusiastic that Charles announced to his producer that he was going to record it.