Dave Mason, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Who Co-Founded Traffic and Sang ‘Feelin’ Alright’ and ‘We Just Disagree,’ Dies at 79

Dave Mason, solo artist, founding member of the band Traffic, writer of the classic rock songs “Feelin’ Alright” and “Hole in My Shoe” and sideman to the Rolling Stones, George Harrison and Jimi Hendrix, has died, according to an announcement from his publicist. No cause of death was announced, although ill health forced him to cancel a tour last year; he was 79.

A fiery guitarist and strong songwriter and singer, Mason was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the other original members of Traffic in 2004. In the 1970s he enjoyed solo hits with “Only You Know and I Know” and “We Just Disagree,” but he was strongest as a collaborator and catalyst, as evidenced by his sprawling discography, which also includes songs with David Crosby, Graham Nash, Michael Jackson, Cass Elliot, Leon Russell and others.

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Born in 1946 in Worcester, England, Mason was a professional musician by his teens and released his first music as a member of the instrumental combo the Jaguars with the 1963 single “Opus to Spring.” In that band he first met future Traffic drummer Jim Capaldi, and the two later joined the Hellions, which released several singles. In early 1966, he became road manager for the Spencer Davis Group, which featured a teenaged and precociously talented Winwood and enjoyed hits with “Gimme Some Lovin’” and “I’m a Man.”

In March of 1967, Winwood left the Spencer Davis Group and formed Traffic with Mason, Capaldi, and flautist Chris Wood. While Mason’s relationship with the group was tenuous — he left and returned at least twice — he wrote two of its best-known songs: “Hole in My Shoe” (which reached No. 2 on the British singles charts and was later covered in a novelty version by the comedy troupe the Young Ones) and “Feelin’ Alright,” later definitively covered by Joe Cocker.

“I was 19 years old,” Mason told Best Classic Bands in a 2016 interview. “’Hole in My Shoe’ was the first song I ever wrote. How did I cope with all of that happening so fast, so quick? I quit. It was too much for me. That’s why I left Traffic after the first album,” although he returned a few weeks later.

Traffic was a major influence on multiple artists during the psychedelic era, and Mason contributed heavily to their first two albums, 1967’s psychedelic classic “Mr. Fantasy,” and the following year’s eponymous sophomore effort. Along with his compositions, he delivered sparkling guitar work and also sitar (on the band’s classic debut single, “Paper Sun”) and other then-unconventional instruments. The flagship artist of late-1960s Island Records, Traffic were the first group among many to “get it together in the country,” workshopping their first album in a cottage in the hills of Berkshire in 1967. Traffic’s version of “Feelin’ Alright” was not a hit, but the song was the rousing opening track of Joe Cocker’s landmark 1969 debut, “With a Little Help From My Friends.”

Mason left Traffic in 1968 for a solo career and simultaneously worked as a sort of hired gun to the stars, playing on the Rolling Stones’ “Beggars Banquet” album (as that band coped with the dissolution of founding guitarist Brian Jones) and Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland” (that’s him playing 12-string acoustic that opens “All Along the Watchtower” and singing background on “Crosstown Traffic”).

In late 1969 he joined the sprawling touring band of the married American duo Delaney & Bonnie (Bramlett), a raucous traveling party which also saw Eric Clapton and George Harrison guesting on multiple U.K. and European dates. This association led to him contributing to several tracks on Harrison’s classic “All Things Must Pass” album, and in mid-1970 he was briefly a member of Eric Clapton’s group Derek & the Dominos, but had left by the time the band recorded its epochal debut, “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.”

Mason instead moved to California, followed his own muse and released multiple solo albums, including one with former Mamas & the Papas singer Cass Elliot, into the 1970s and ’80s. His 1974 self-titled album (although it was actually his fifth studio effort) went gold in the U.S.; he enjoyed his biggest solo hit, a cover of Jim Krueger’s composition “We Just Disagree” and the album “Let It Flow” in 1977, although further chart success did not follow.

His unexpected collaboration with Michael Jackson, for a song on Mason’s 1980 album “Old Crest,” came about because of Diana Ross’ cover of “Feelin’ Alright.”

“I was cutting ‘Old Crest,’ the last album I made for Columbia, at Westlake in L.A.,” he recalled. “Michael was in the other room doing ‘Thriller.’ I needed somebody to sing a high part on a song I was recording called ‘Save Me.’ Somebody told me they were on a break, so I just walked over there to the doorway of the control room and I explained what I was doing. He looked at me for a minute and he said, ‘I was 12 years old and I did this Diana Ross session, and the last thing she and I did together was a song called “Feelin’ Alright,” so yeah, absolutely, I’ll come over and sing with you.’”

The most curious turn in his career came in the 1990s when he briefly became a member of Fleetwood Mac, appearing on the 1995 album “Time” and on tour along with Bekka Bramlett — the daughter of his earlier collaborators Delaney & Bonnie — during a period when Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks had left the group. The revised lineup found disfavor among many Fleetwood Mac fans, and Buckingham and Nicks rejoined for a reunion of the “classic” lineup two years later.

He continued to tour regularly well into his seventies, although Mason’s health issues became known in 2024 when he canceled his tour for the following year, citing ailments related to an unspecified infection. However, he said he planned to reschedule the dates.

“Live is where it’s at,” he said in the 2016 interview. “There’s so much fake stuff going on. There’s so much bullshit out there. The only thing that lasts is anything that’s real, and the only thing that transcends genre is authenticity.”

Mason is survived by his wife, Winifred Wilson, and his daughter, Danielle. He was preceded in death by his son, True, and his sister, Valerie Leonard.