Guitarist, songwriter, singer and Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame member Dave Mason of British rock group Traffic and solo renown drives his acclaimed “Traffic Jam” tour into the Santa Clarita Valley Thursday night, Sept. 18, for his first appearance at the Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center.

Mason (lead vocals, acoustic six- and 12-string guitars and electric six-string guitar) will deliver a set tracing high points of his illustrious 50-year career, backed by longtime Dave Mason Band members Johnne Sambatero (acoustic-electric guitar), Tony Patler (bass-keyboards) and Alvino Bennett (drums), using storytelling and video to make the concert a multimedia experience.

“We’re doing some songs from the first two Traffic albums, which is pretty much it (for me), then we take a break and come back and do stuff from my solo albums,” Mason said in an exclusive phone interview from his home in Ojai, where he’s lived the past 15 years.

“Along with that, we’ve got some visual moments from Traffic and later career stuff,” he said. “It spans a pretty big era.”

Songs in previous shows on the “Traffic Jam” tour, which has just been extended into 2015, include Traffic classics like “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” “Feelin’ All Right,” “40,000 Headmen,” “You Can All Join In,” Mason’s Delaney & Bonnie hit “Only You Know and I Know,” and solo hits like “World in Changes,” “Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave,” “We Just Disagree,” “Every Woman in the World” and “Let it Go, Let it Flow.”

A highlight of the set is Mason’s powerful, melodic arrangement of “All Along the Watchtower”; in 1968, he played 12-string guitar on Jimi Hendrix’s hit recording of the Bob Dylan song.

During the same sessions at Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studio in New York, Mason sang backing vocals on “Crosstown Traffic.” Both tracks are on Hendrix’s epic “Electric Ladyland” album.

Beyond the Hendrix sessions, there are many more highlights worthy of Mason’s storytelling. Inducted into the Rock Hall with Traffic in 2004, he played a key role in British and American rock history during the late 1960s and 1970s, and his musical influence endures.

Mason was also a Friend with Southern-West Coast blues rockers Delaney & Bonnie (they opened for Blind Faith in 1969 and scored a Top 20 hit with Mason’s “Only You Know and I Know”); an original member of Derek & The Dominos with former D&B Friends Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon; appeared on The Rolling Stones’ “Beggars Banquet” album, George Harrison’s debut solo album “All Things Must Pass” and, several years later, Paul McCartney & Wings’ single “Listen to What the Man Said”; and produced or co-produced more than a dozen solo albums, starting with 1970’s million-selling “Alone Together” album, and stretching all the way to his latest, 2014’s “Future’s Past.”

With a band, session and solo catalog long and deep as his, Mason has plenty of now-classic songs to choose from during his Traffic Jam sets, and often throws in a couple rarities for super-fans. As this writer can attest after seeing this band in 2010 and 2012, Mason has lost none of his vocal power or guitar-playing prowess.

Dave Mason’s Road to Traffic

Traffic’s formation is another tale we hear about in Mason’s “Traffic Jam” set. He was born May 10, 1944 in Worcester, and as a teen growing up in the British Midlands, was deeply influenced by American folk-rock. He learned to sing and play guitar, paid his dues in a few local bands in the mid-’60s, and produced the acclaimed “Music in a Doll’s House” debut album for the British folk-rock group Family.

Mason and Spencer Davis Group wunderkind singer-keyboardist-guitarist Steve Winwood met and in spring 1967 and conspired to form a new band. Mason worked as a Davis roadie for a few months until Winwood announced his departure.

“I was basically there just to hang out with Steve, until he pulled the plug on the Spencer Davis Group and we started Traffic,” said Mason, who was 22 at the time. Winwood was just 19, but already a rock star in Britain and the U.S., singing lead on Davis hits like “Gimme Some Lovin’” and “I’m a Man.”

With two more Midlander mates, Chris Wood on bass and Jim Capaldi playing drums, Mason and Winwood ensconced the group in an isolated cottage in the country on the Berkshire Downs, and Traffic started jamming.

“We were one of the first alternative bands,” Mason said. “The original idea was just to do something different. There was a big mix of stuff in there. I didn’t know what was going to come out of that. It was just shootin’ in the dark.”

The sound the original Traffic lineup came up with blended everything from psychedelic pop to folk rock, blues and jazz to world music from India, Africa and the Middle East. It was a revolutionary and influential mix, and much of the material stands up today, after nearly half a century.

Dave Mason’s Traffic Exit

Mason exited Traffic after the band’s first two albums, “Dear Mr. Fantasy” (December 1967) and “Traffic” (October 1968), and U.K. hit singles like Mason’s “Hole in My Shoe” and “You Can All Join In,” amid creative differences and ego clashes with Winwood.

“He didn’t like what I was doing,” Mason said.

At the time he and Winwood had met and hit it off musically, Mason said, “I hadn’t written anything and my songs weren’t being picked as the singles. … (It was) too young, too much, too soon.”

Mason had visited the U.S. on numerous occasions, but after Traffic and a short stint in early 1969 with Wooden Frog, he moved to the States for good.

“I came over here because this is the origin of all contemporary music, this is where it all comes from,” he said. “Jazz, blues, gospel, rock ’n’ roll are all American folk music. You must go where the original stuff was.”

Friending Delaney & Bonnie, Bailing from Derek & The Dominos

In California, West Coast country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons introduced Mason to Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett, and Mason joined up with the couple’s loose-knit Friends backing band. They recorded and toured the U.S. and U.K., including a stint opening for Blind Faith, the “supergroup” fronted by former John Mayall/Yardbirds/Cream guitarist Eric Clapton and Winwood.

“That tour (with Delaney & Bonnie) was basically the seed for Derek & The Dominos,” Mason said.

In spring 1970, back in England, Mason joined former Friends Eric Clapton, keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon in Clapton’s new group. They rehearsed, recorded some early but unsuccessful tracks and played their first concert at the Lyceum in London on June 14. After that one live gig, though, Mason bailed as a Domino.

“Eric was starting to get into heroin,” Mason said. “We had already started recording, but he was going one way and I was going another. It’s Jim Gordon (who) got him into all that. It was just a shame. Nothing was getting done, really. Just a lot of laying around in a stupor. I said, ‘Guys, this is not my scene. I’ve got to go back to the States.’ Then they went on to make a great album anyway (“Layla,” recorded that August/September in Miami, with Duane Allman guesting on second guitar), so c’est la vie.”

Mason Goes Solo with ‘Alone Together’

After his short stint as a Domino, Mason went solo for good. He landed back in L.A., signed a deal with the Blue Thumb label, and rounded up a bunch of his musician friends, including Leon Russell, Jim Capaldi, Carl Radle, Chris Ethridge, Jim Keltner, Rita Coolidge, Delaney & Bonnie and more.

They recorded over a period of a couple months at Sunset Sound and Elektra Studios in Hollywood. Mason co-produced the sessions with jazz producer Tommy LiPuma. Bruce Botnik of Doors renown was the recording engineer, and Grammy-winning producer/engineer Al Schmitt mixed the final takes.

The eight-song album kicks off with Mason’s definitive recording of his “Only You Know and I Know,” followed by “Can’t Stop Worrying, Can’t Stop Loving,” “Waitin’ On You,” “Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave, “World in Changes,” “Sad and Deep As You,” and “Just A song,” with “Look at You, Look at Me” (co-written with Capaldi) the tour de force closer.

“It was just so well-recorded, number one, but the songs – every one on ‘Alone Together’ is a killer,” said Schmitt, who just wrapped up engineering projects with Bob Dylan and Neil Young for albums due out in early November. The famed Berklee School of Music just awarded Schmitt an honorary doctorate degree on Wednesday. Winner of 23 Grammys, Schmitt also will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame later this year.

“Bruce was a great engineer and still is, but Bruce couldn’t mix it – he had another commitment,” Schmitt said. “So Tommy asked me to mix it. I hadn’t mixed an album in over five years because I was just producing. But I got so interested in the mixing of this record and how much I loved doing it that it got my career back on track as being an engineer, and started producing and engineering again. It was a lot of fun, and inspirational for me because I realized, ‘Hey, I can still do this, and I can still do it well.’”

Mason followed “Alone Together” by connecting with Cass Elliott and recorded a duo album with the Mamas & Papas singer, out in 1971.

After a legal tussle with his label, Blue Thumb Records, Mason signed with Columbia Records in the early ’70s, and released albums like “It’s Like You Never Left” (1973), “Dave Mason” (1974), “Split Coconut” (1975), “Let it Flow” (1977) and “Mariposa de Oro” (1978).

Since then, Mason has released “Some Assembly Required” and “Two Hearts” (both 1987), “Long Lost Friend” (1995), “Live: 40,000 Headmen Tour” (with Capaldi, 1999), “Live at Perkins Palace” and “Dave Mason: Live at Sunrise” (both 2002), with several hits collections joining the catalog along the way.

‘Future’s Past,’ ‘That’s Freedom’ and Work Vessels for Veterans

Mason, who said “Mariposa de Oro” is his all-time favorite solo album, released “Future’s Past” earlier this year. The collection of re-recorded Mason classics and new original material has picked up some very positive reviews.

“Future’s Past” closes with “That’s Freedom,” a recent Mason song he’s dedicated to Work Vessels for Veterans, a nonprofit group that helps returning members of the military.

“Some of the song is my commentary on the state of the union and the direction it’s been going in the last few years, which I don’t agree with at all,” Mason said.

“And the vets thing – we (don’t ask twice) about people who put a uniform on and perhaps put their lives on the line to defend our way of life,” he said.

“A friend of mine from Mystic, Connecticut, who’s worked in the wine and spirits business for many years and also has a lobster boat, was going to buy a new boat about six years ago,” he said. “He decided instead of trading his old boat in, he would go find a veteran who could use it to earn some money.

“He talked to me, saying ‘I want to start this,’” Mason said. “I asked, ‘What can I do, other than be a mouthpiece? Since I have a forum, I might as well do that.’

“We started with that boat, which is actually our logo, and the Work Vessels for Veterans website at WVFV.org,” he said. “Our mission is to help vets start their own businesses so they can take care of themselves and perhaps hire other people. Our motto is that we’re not into giving handouts; we’re into giving a hand up. That’s how we feel about it. It’s been great.

“We’re just three or four volunteers, so 90-plus percent of the money we get goes to the veterans,” he said. “We pass out a lot of laptop computers to them for education. But we fly under the radar because we don’t spend money on advertising.

“Out of everything I’ve ever done,” Mason said, “it’s probably the most rewarding thing for me to know I’ve helped somebody stand on their own two feet.”

For more information about Dave Mason, visit his official website and his Facebook page. Tickets for the Sept. 18 Santa Clarita concert are $45 to $55 and available from the Performing Arts Center box office at 661-362-5304.

Photos: Stephen K. Peeples and courtesy Dave Mason.

Santa Clarita journalist Stephen K. Peeples is a features writer and photographer for AM 1220 KHTS Radio News and the station’s award-winning website (HometownStation.com), and for SCVTV’s SCVNews.com. Peeples also hosts and co-produces SCVTV’s acclaimed “House Blend” music and interview program, and posts more entertainment news and reviews on his own site at http://www.stephenkpeeples.com.