I’ve seen Winwood about a dozen times in his career since 1968, seven times since 2004. Winwood played the MGM Grand Friday night, his third trip to Foxwoods since the release of About Time, with his usual five-piece band that includes a percussionist and sax player but no bass player. Winwood handles that with his left foot at the Hammond B-3, while providing adept, funky and soulful keyboard playing and still delivering with one of the best voices in the music world.

After the second song in his set, Hungry Man, from his Top 10 album from 2008, Nine Lives, he noted all the returning customers he spotted in the front of the 5,000-seat house, which was about 90 percent filled. He added that he and his band would be returning customers for a while also, a pronouncement that was received very enthusiastically.

The musicianship complementing one of the bonafide great talents in rock history is impressive: Jose Neto, who has been with Winwood since About Time, is on classical-electric guitar, as well as a Fender Strat for some tunes; Paul Booth plays tenor and soprano sax, flute, whistle, organ and sings background vocals; Richard Bailey handles drums with a fierce, worldly rhythmic fire; and Karl Vanden Bossche is the percussionist center stage on an array of congas and other embellishing tools of the trade.

Winwood’s band, with the exception of Neto, has changed personnel several times in the last six years, but this unit, which I saw open for Tom Petty at The Meadows in Hartford in 2008, has been together at least that long. And it sounds it. It’s a tight-knit, rocking, funky lineup that burns through a set of old and new songs with equal polish.

It appears some Winwood returning customers, based on comments in a Winwood e-mail newsletter, have wearied a little of his setlist, which always includes some of his best-known tunes, but the audience on this night had no such qualms. And his mix of three songs from Nine Lives and a Traffic tune I hadn’t heard since the ’94 Traffic reunion with Jim Capaldi made for an interesting set, even for someone like me who has seen him so many times in recent years.

The opener was a burning version of the Spencer Davis classic I’m A Man, a song I’ve seen him play many times and which I never tire, followed by Hungry Man from Nine Lives. Then Winwood came out front to don a Telecaster hybrid acoustic-electric guitar to sing one of his signature tunes, Can’t Find My Way Home. In the many concerts I’ve seen recently, this moderate tempo tune is one of the only ones I can remember by any artist that gets a rousing ovation after each chorus. When he delivers the final line of the chorus “But I’m wasted and I can’t find my way home,” the audience literally sounds like a wave building to a spontaneous crescendo of appreciation.

When Winwood first came back to the road in 2004 his voice sounded fine but didn’t quite hit some of those notes in the upper register as easily as he had as a young singer. But his reading of Can’t Find My Way Home sounded much like the version on the one-off Blind Faith album. His voice appears to be improving as he continues to tour.

Dirty City, a guitar epic with Winwood on his pale green Strat and Fly, which featues Booth on whistle, followed. A string of Traffic tunes came next with  Light Up Or Leave Me Alone one I had only heard performed once live when Capaldi sang it during the ’94 reunion tour. The 20-minute interpretation is a showcase for each player, and each solo is inspired and creative, particularly Vanden Bosssche’s and a solo/duet with Bailey and Vanden Bossche.

A shortened Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys gave way to Empty Pages, from John Barleycorn Must Die, and Winwood finished the main set with one of his best selling solo efforts Higher Love, which literally had the crowd dancing in the aisles.

He came back for his turn at Dear Mr. Fantasy on lead guitar with Bailey and Booth on Hammond B-3, a version that has cemented in the minds of Winwood’s fans what an extraordinary yet underrated guitar player he is. And Gimme Some Lovin’, often his closer, wrapped things up.

I don’t always make time for seeing Winwood when he’s around. For instance, I recently passed on one show right down the road at the Waterbury Palace. But each time I see him, I’m always inspired and completely overtaken by his understated and engaging performance as well as his prodigious talent as a singer, player and songwriter. He’s one of our best and this band really cooks.

Setlist
I’m A Man
Hungry Man
Can’t Find My Way Home
Dirty City
Fly
Light Up Or Leave Me Alone
Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys
Empty Pages
Higher Ground
Dear Mr. Fantasy
Gimme Some Lovin’