Blind Faith (Deluxe Edition CD)
Sound: B Music:
B+ Extras: B+
How about being in a
Supergroup for an entire year? Sounds
like a really awful idea or another sickening “reality” show, but that is more
or less the idea of the first band that was ever dubbed a Supergroup. Eric Clapton had already made a name for
himself in bands like John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and The Yardbirds, but really
hit it big in Cream. However, it was
his least favorite experience, and despite the commercial benefits, brought the
band to an end by 1968. Later that
year, he would form another band and the result would be Blind Faith.
So stunned Cream was gone, the only way the press could
deal with this was to dub the new band a Supergroup, though the first high ticket
prices for their concerts only added to that idea. Steve Winwood had already established himself as one of Rock’s
most uncompromised (at the time) voices in bands like Traffic and the Spencer
Davis Group. Drummer Ginger Baker also
happened to be a Cream alumnus, and landed up joining in, though it would bring
Clapton back to what made him unhappy about Cream in the end to begin
with. Bassist Rick Grech was the final
addition and the band was off.
Blind Faith offered a controversial cover of a topless young
girl holding a then-advanced-looking warplane, a perfect provocation of the
Vietnam fiasco. The music content of
the vinyl release would be a mere six tracks, but the final one would exceed 15
minutes. However, that was more than
enough for it to be a huge #1 million-seller, but few knew at the time that
this would be a one-shot gig. You have
to remember that many bands were being launched that year, like Led Zeppelin,
so anything could happen and was possible.
There is a sense of two things
with this album, extended jams and abstracted Blues, combined in a free-style
that feels like it is taking off from the groundswell of a height where Rock
was at the time. It could have only
come out of that atmosphere. That Buddy
Holly’s Well All Right would make the set of otherwise original tunes
like Had To Cry, Can’t Find My Way Home, and Do What You Like
seems most appropriate. This is an
album worth of the beginnings of Rock music, because it is an original.
The PCM CD Stereo tracks sound good for their age, with
the only limit here being the 16bit/44.1kHz signal of the CD format
itself. The five extras tracks on CD 1
and 4 mega-tracks on CD 2 also sound really good. Winwood’s vocals are relatively clean, and the instrumentals are
nicely spaced for a format at this level.
An SACD or DVD-Audio should yield even more detail; while this set shows
how good a shape the masters are in.
The set also comes with the usually well-written and illustrated booklet
that Universal keeps producing for these fine sets, which are archival even if
the discs are CDs.
So, commerce killed what could
have been one of the 1970s most important bands, even if they only lasted
during the early part of the decade.
The critical and commercial success of its alumni bear that out, expect
that the now-tired and played out Supergroup concept is a dead giveaway that
the press and fans had extremely high expectations of all of them to begin
with. This makes Blind Faith a
one-of-a-kind gem that many might miss the point of, but those who know much
better are going to want this set before it goes out of print.
- Nicholas Sheffo
