When Steve Winwood set out to make the follow-up to his Grammy Award-winning 1986 album Back in the High Life, something was in the air. That something was beer.
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When legendary session drummer John “JR” Robinson arrived in Toronto to lay down his tracks for Winwood’s Roll with It album, he was told to meet up with the singer and multi-instrumentalist at a local brewery. In an email exchange with American Songwriter, Robinson recounts that, when he arrived at the destination, Winwood “was standing on top of a beer microbrew tank. He saw me and proceeded to spray me like a shower instead of drinking!!”
Beer played a key role in making Roll with It Winwood’s only No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 and his first album to go Platinum in less than two months. More specifically, a beer advertisement featuring a song from Roll with It helped Winwood to achieve the commercial apex of his career. It also brought criticism from those who questioned his artistic intentions.
Reviving an Overlooked Deep Cut
Winwood was one of several artists who were popular in the 1980s to lend a song to Michelob’s “The Night Belongs to Michelob” ad campaign. Part of the deal for some of the artists, including Winwood, was to receive tour sponsorship from Anheuser-Busch. Eric Clapton, Genesis, and Wang Chung participated in the campaign, too, but the use of Winwood’s “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do?” was particularly controversial among music fans. One reason the ad may have led some to think Winwood was selling out was that it was not the first time he had contributed a song to the campaign.
In late 1987, Anheuser-Busch unveiled a Michelob ad featuring a remixed version of the title track from Winwood’s 1982 album Talking Back to the Night. The song had never been released as a single, other than in Japan. By January 1988, “Talking Back to the Night” had made its debut on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart, and it eventually peaked at No. 17. Within a couple of months, it would make its way onto adult contemporary playlists, and it peaked at No. 7 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, while also making a No. 57 showing on the Hot 100.
The remixed version appeared on Winwood’s 1987 Chronicles compilation, which also featured a new version of “Valerie” from Talking Back to the Night. Whereas “Valerie” only made it to No. 70 on the Hot 100 in its first incarnation as a single, the punched-up remix went all the way to No. 9.
Winwood Returns for a Second Beer Ad
Just as “Talking Back to the Night” was fading from the charts, a large swath of music fans got introduced to two new Winwood tracks. The title track to Roll with It was released as a single in late May 1988. The following month, the Michelob ad with a 60-second edit of “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do?” first aired on the same day the Roll with It album hit the shelves.
Unlike the ad with “Talking Back to the Night,” this one actually featured Winwood in the clip. It opens with a shot of him walking, and then the camera pans to a wall plastered with posters promoting Roll with It. The scene shifts to Winwood in a hotel room or apartment, scrawling musical notation and then lip-synching the opening verse to “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do?” Shots of Winwood are interspersed throughout the entire ad, and by the end, he is on a TV screen at a bar, performing the song.
Winwood received flak for doing the ad, and he noted in Chris Welch’s 1990 biography Steve Winwood: Roll with It that he was aware that the timing of the ad made it appear he had written the song exclusively for the commercial. In a 1988 interview with Rolling Stone, Winwood explained his decision, saying, “I mean, I wrote a seven-minute song. OK, they used 50 seconds of it. Fine. The edits were theirs, although I approved them. … There’s no way that their involvement made me present a lower-quality product.”
Boosting the Popularity of Roll with It
It would take Virgin Records almost two months after Roll with It’s release to put “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do?” out as the album’s second single, but it instantly debuted on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart once the Michelob ad started airing. It would eventually spend two weeks at the top of those rankings, and its 17-week stay on the chart would be six weeks longer than that of “Roll with It,” which also went to No. 1. Once it was officially released as a single, “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do?” would debut on the Hot 100 and Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, peaking at No. 6 and No. 2, respectively.
To be sure, the brisk early sales of Roll with It owed a lot to the success of its title track, as well as the interest built by the earlier popularity of “Valerie” and the multiple hit singles from Back in the High Life. It also didn’t hurt the album had two other songs climbing the charts upon its release. In addition to “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do?” debuting on the Mainstream Rock chart, “Holding On” entered that chart once the album was out, and eventually rose to No. 2.
Whether or not it had anything to do with him doing a beer ad or spraying suds on a fellow musician, Roll with It and “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do?” both hopped to the top of the charts, rising like foam in a beer mug. Once the ‘90s arrived, Winwood’s chart hits would soon dry up, but when “Don’t You Know What the Night Can Do?” first turned up during commercial breaks, Winwood was indeed back in the high life.
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