“Only You Know and I Know” singer jammed with the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and George Harrison

Dave Mason, the guitarist who wrote the classic rock standard “Feelin’ Alright?” while he was a member of Traffic and later found solo success with the propulsive “Only You Know and I Know” and the soft-rock staple “We Just Disagree,” died on Sunday. He was 79. A cause of death was not immediately available.

“On behalf of his family, it is with deep and profound sadness that we share the news of the passing of Dave Mason,” a statement from his publicist, Melissa Dragich, read. “Dave Mason lived a remarkable life devoted to the music and people he loved.”

Last fall, Mason announced his retirement from touring, citing ongoing health challenges as the reason behind his decision. “He retires from touring a happy man with a heart full of gratitude to his band members, business colleagues, and especially his legions of fans who made his life one of deep satisfaction and fulfillment,” read a statement on his social media at the time. “The immensity of his joy remains solid as he steps back from the stage.”

Mason began his career with Traffic, giving the psychedelic band their biggest British hit with “Hole in My Shoe.” He left the band shortly after the single climbed to Number Two in 1967, an early indication of the wanderlust that became his signature. Over the course of his career, Mason played on sessions by the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and George Harrison, playing alongside Eric Clapton on a tour with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, and even spending time in Fleetwood Mac in the early 1990s. He’d later joke that “I’m kind of the Forrest Gump of rock,” a declaration he made to USA Today while promoting his 2024 memoir, Only You Know and I Know.  

Born May 10, 1946, in Worcester, England, Dave Mason grew up in the Midlands, roughly 12 miles away from where Robert Plant and John Bonham were raised; also nearby was Jim Capaldi, who would become his bandmate in Traffic. Mason sang in the school choir as a child, but his love of music was sparked by the big bang of rock & roll, particularly the music of Buddy Holly. Picking up guitar at the age of 16, he began playing music professionally as part of the instrumental rock group the Jaguars. He departed the band after the release of “Opus to Spring” in 1963, teaming up with Capaldi in the Hellions, who toured through the U.K. and Germany between 1964 and 1965. 

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The Hellions recorded a handful of singles in 1965, the first of which was “Daydreaming of You,” a song composed by Jackie De Shannon and produced by Kim Fowley. None of these singles found much success, so the group spent time acting as the support group for P.J. Proby, after which time Mason drifted away from the band. The guitarist kept gigging, earning extra money by working as a roadie for the Spencer Davis Group, the high-octane R&B outfit featuring a teenage Steve Winwood on keyboard and guitar. Mason worked his way into the inner circle of the Spencer Davis Group, singing background on a few of their sessions. In 1967, Winwood left Spencer Davis to form Traffic with Mason and Capaldi, adding flautist Chris Wood for good measure. 

Traffic literally woodshedded in those early days: living in a cottage, jamming as they figured out their sound, crossing the baroque British fantasies of early Pink Floyd with the melodicism of the Beatles. Over the course of 1967, Traffic immediately racked up three Top Ten hits in England with “Paper Sun,” “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush,” and “Hole in My Shoe,” the latter written and sung by Mason. The success of “Hole in My Shoe” overwhelmed Mason, leading the guitarist to step away from the band. He released a solo single, “Little Woman,” in 1968, then produced Music in a Doll’s House, the first album by the eccentric progressive rockers the Family, all before being coaxed back into Traffic when the rest of the group realized they didn’t have enough original material for their second album.

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Mason wrote half of Traffic, including “Feelin’ Alright?,” the album’s lone single; it wasn’t a hit for the band, but Joe Cocker’s 1969 cover made the song ubiquitous. Shortly after the release of Traffic in 1968, Mason was fired by the group. He later recounted in his memoir that Winwood told him, “I don’t like the way you write. I don’t like the way you sing. I don’t like the way you play. And we don’t want you in the band any more.” 

Already a familiar fixture at recording sessions — he played the droning shehnai on “Street Fighting Man,” the Rolling Stones single produced by Jimmy Miller, who also helmed Traffic’s early LPs — Mason drifted through a number of musical scenarios in the aftermath of his dismissal. He jammed with Cream drummer Ginger Baker, wound up at the sessions for George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, and played a 12-string acoustic guitar on Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower.” Hendrix toyed with the idea of having Mason play in the Experience, a notion that didn’t come to fruition. A reunion with Capaldi and Wood in Wooden Frog also fell apart.

Mason headed to America, where Gram Parsons — an acquaintance of his through the Rolling Stones — became his gateway into Los Angeles rock. Mason joined Delaney & Bonnie & Friends on tours of America and Britain, where he played alongside Eric Clapton. On that tour, Mason sang “Only You Know and I Know,” the song that became the centerpiece of Alone Together, his 1970 debut for Blue Thumb Records. Cut in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a crew largely pulled from Delaney & Bonnie, Alone Together provided a promising start to a solo career for Mason, one that he complicated by releasing a duet album with Cass Elliot in 1971. 

By the time Dave Mason & Cass Elliot saw release, Mason fell into a contract dispute with Blue Thumb, leading the label to issue Headkeeper in 1972 and Dave Mason Is Alive! without his approval. During his downtime, he accepted an offer to be in Clapton’s Derek & the Dominos, but he left after playing one gig, finding the guitarist’s narcotic-inspired stupor enervating. He agreed to rejoin Traffic for a spell, playing on a tour that was chronicled on Welcome to the Canteen.

Once his conflict with Blue Thumb resolved, Mason moved to Columbia, releasing It’s Like You Never Left in October 1973; Stevie Wonder played on the album’s “The Lonely One.” A pair of other albums, Dave Mason and Split Coconut, followed on its heels, and Mason built an audience through regular touring. Certified Live provided a sampler of his concerts in 1976.

Mason cameoed on another superstar single when he played guitar on “Listen to What the Man Says,” the 1975 smash by Paul McCartney & Wings. Soon, he had his own big hit in the form of “We Just Disagree,” a ballad written by his guitarist Jim Krueger. “We Just Disagree” anchored 1977’s Let It Flow, and he had one other hit album with 1978’s Mariposa de Oro before he closed out his Columbia contract in 1980 with Old Crest on a New Wave. The album’s title nodded at the New Wave that was wiping classic rockers off the charts, but the record had another harbinger of the 1980s in the form of Michael Jackson, who duetted with Mason on “Save Me.” Jackson accepted the gig because he sang “Feelin’ Alright?” with Diana Ross on a television special when he was 12 years old. 

Mason’s 1980s were slow. He later said, “The latest flavor was something I didn’t want to be any part of. I didn’t fit into the business at that point.” Embroiled in a contractual dispute with Columbia Records, Mason toured with Krueger as a duet act, then released Two Hearts on MCA in 1987; it was his last release on a major label. 

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Mason joined Fleetwood Mac in 1993, appearing on the 1995 album Time, the first record to not feature Stevie Nicks in 20 years. He rejoined Capaldi in 1998 for a tour that resulted in Live: The 40,000 Headmen Tour. It was the last time relations were cordial between the pair. Mason had another spat with Winwood during Traffic’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. In his memoir, Mason writes that Capaldi told Winwood on his deathbed in 2005 to not reform Traffic.

Undaunted, Mason released 26 Letters and 12 Notes, his first album in 20 years, in 2008. He’d release Future’s Past six years later, and rerecord Alone Together in 2020, but during his last decades, he concentrated on playing live, culminating in a tour called “Traffic Jam” in 2024. It was an unusual ending for a musician who never felt at ease onstage. “I still don’t like standing up there in front of the spotlight. I feel very uncomfortable up there,” He told Rock Cellar in 2020. “I’m not a rock star, let’s put it that way. I never wanted to be. I just wanted to write great music, make some money and have fun. And when I was younger, meet girls.”