Traffic are one of those bands who somehow fell through the cracks of my musical journey. Consequently, Dave Mason was not a name that meant a great deal to me.

Strangely, I do remember a couple of their album titles, John Barleycorn Must Die and Low Sark Of High Heeled Boys, but I don’t recall ever actually hearing the records.

Listening to this makes me realise that was my loss. Mason, who passed in and out of the band several times, perpetually in conflict with fellow founder Steve Winwood, seems to be one of those Zelig figures of music.

As well as Traffic, for whom he wrote their biggest hit single Hole In My Shoe, and their best-known song Feelin’ Alright, a huge hit for Joe Cocker, Mason pursued a successful solo career.

He taught George Harrison the slide guitar sound that became his signature on All Things Must Pass. He played the wailing Indian reed instrument on The Rolling Stones’ Street Fighting Man. He strummed the acoustic guitar that introduced Jimi Hendrix’s version of All Along The Watchtower (and sang the backing vocals on Crosstown Traffic).

He also recorded with Eric Clapton in Derek & The Dominoes, Paul McCartney & Wings, Michael Jackson, Fleetwood Mac, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Leon Russell and Cass Elliott, with whom he recorded an underrated album of duets.

So I’m not sure how I managed to miss his entire career: it’s probably because I graduated from glam to punk, reggae ad post-punk before I began delving back into the past in my thirties. And when I did, I eschewed prog for the rootsier sounds of funk and soul and country and blues.

I do have a vague memory of my best friend’s mum owning a Traffic album called John Barleycorn Must Die, but I may have assumed it was a folk record due to the title, and I don’t recall hearing it.

I also dimly remember Traffic as the novelty pop group who had sung the annoying hit singles Paper Sun and Hole In My Shoe, the latter a kind of psych-tinged nursery rhyme, when I was a child.

But by the time I formed my own tastes a few years later, I was listening to the latest pop hits by Slade, Sweet and T.Rex, while all around me at school was endless noodling by ‘albums bands’ like Yes, Genesis and ELP.

With hindsight, I clearly missed out on some great music, of which this is song with the grammatically regrettable title Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave is a fine examle.

It initially appeared on Dave Mason’s solo album Alone Together in 1970 but I prefer this version by Traffic, with Steve Winwood’s keyboards to the fore, and an even more impressive guitar solo by Mason, from their live album Welcome To The Canteen.