Our colonial antihero speaks slowly, as if in a dream. Picture him in some opium den of the Orient, tale-spinning to no one in particular.
He tells of dangerous encounters with the titular “40,000 Headmen” and the discovery of the “secret cave where they obviously stashed their loot.” It’s a tale out of “King Solomon’s Mines” or Jack London’s “South Sea Tales.” Our narrator is no noble Allan Quatermain, however — his white man’s burden is “a hundred tons” of stolen treasure. The greedy bastard says he even “stuffed it up my nose.”
Traffic drummer Jim Capaldi said this top-flight Traffic song came to him in a “hash-fueled dream” roughly about the time of the Summer of Love. It’s a prime example of psychedelic folk, mostly dreamy minor-key, the adventurer sherpaed along by Chris Wood’s marvelous flute.
“40,000 Headmen” first surfaced as a B-side to the single “No Face, No Name and No Number” in February 1968. It as then titled “Roamin’ Thru’ the Gloamin’ with 40,000 Headmen.” (Or “Thro’.”) Like “Headmen,” the A-side was a Capaldi-Steve Winwood composition. The single did a bit of business in Britain, but nowhere else.
“Headmen” resurfaced eight months later on “Traffic,” the band’s second album. (The title by then had dropped the unwieldy original name in favor of just “40,000 Headmen,” which is how it has soldiered on to this day.) At least half of that LP featured Dave Mason, who had left the group but rejoined, bringing the soon-to-be hippie standard “Feelin’ Alright?”
“40,000 Headmen” was recorded sans Mason, with the core trio of Capaldi, Winwood and Wood, probably in late 1967. Its feel was more in touch with the early mysterious Traffic (“Paper Sun,” “Dealer”) than with Mason’s easy-on-the-ears folk rock.
“Traffic” would prove to be the original band’s last proper studio album, followed by the odds-and-sods “Last Exit.” (Winwood left to start the short-lived Blind Faith.) That exit would be temporary, with the three musicians reuniting for 1970’s hit album “John Barleycorn Must Die.” A string of 1970s albums followed, utilizing a shifting cast of players and a jazzy-vaguely-prog sound that proved right for the times.
The psych folk of “40,000 Headmen” lived on, though, with the expanded Traffic featuring it in concert and notably in a 6-minute workout on the 1971 live album “Welcome to the Canteen.”
Capaldi and Mason performed together in 1998 under the banner of the 40,000 Headmen Tour, which was followed by an album. Mason adopted the song as a fixture in his concerts, despite having nothing to do with its recording.
Liner notes: Capaldi later recorded a reggae version of his song. It can be found on his 2011 box set. … “Roamin’ in the Gloamin'” was a popular song written by Scotland’s Harry Lauder in 1911. It would have been quite familiar to the grandparents of Traffic band members. That romantic ditty had nothing to do with head hunters. … The exotic adventures of H. Rider Haggard such as “King Solomon’s Mines” and “She” would have been standard fare for a schoolboy such as Capaldi growing up in 1950s England. … Blood, Sweat & Tears covered Traffic’s song for its third album in 1970.
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