It hardly took over a half-century of hindsight to confirm that the one and only Blind Faith studio album was a largely hollow denial of the original potential in Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton’s collaboration. The former’s tendering of an invitation to Ginger Baker to join the collaboration ruined the burgeoning creative dynamic, an unfortunate occurrence bemoaned in no uncertain terms by Slowhand in his autobiography. It was an error compounded by the controversy that arose over the original cover art for the album. It was eventually necessary to formulate two different images for the LP, a kerfuffle that played out in public and only served to create adverse publicity for a collective already in a precarious state by its own admission (hence the choice of the band’s name).
Blind Faith is effectively two-thirds of an album. Its first side contains some gems that set up what might’ve been an excellent second half following the fifth (and penultimate) cut “Sea Of Joy.” But the irascible drummer’s “Do What You Like” is not particularly memorable, to begin with (like most of Baker’s contributions to Cream), so its faults become compounded when it turns into a drum solo that comprises much of its fifteen-plus (!) minutes.
The democracy in action that allowed that abject redundancy had been the bane of the aforementioned seminal power trio, and the contrary effect is much the same for Blind Faith. A single American tour found the foursome’s repertoire, including material from Clapton and Baker’s work with Jack Bruce, a concession to the audience that only blunted the force of its own original material. Such compromises were among the multiple reasons Eric bonded with one of the opening acts, the r&b-oriented ensemble known as Delaney & Bonnie and Friends.
That burgeoning relationship ultimately led Clapton to embark upon a solo career after the short-lived ‘supergroup’ ceased to exist. On his eponymous debut under his own name, he downplayed his guitar work to a great degree and instead emphasized his lead singing (at the encouragement of Delaney Bramlett, who oversaw the sessions before the recordings were handed off to Tom Dowd for mixing; see both man’s work in the 2006 two-CD Deluxe Edition).
This convoluted and awkward sequence of events led to the formation of Derek and the Dominos (with three members of D & B’s Friends). Their sole release, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is arguably the pinnacle of Eric Clapton’s career, but from the perspective of fifty-five years, the meandering but otherwise commercially successful course of his solo career otherwise is little surprise: how much more potent could have been his conceptually complementary partnership with Steve Winwood, who moved on from the ill-fated alliance to reform Traffic for that band’s most prosperous period.
As documented on the 2009 CD/DVD Live from Madison Square Garden, intermittent occurrences of Clapton/Winwood concerts over the years hint at what Blind Faith might well have become under different circumstances. As does a double-CD package of the latter’s album issued in 2001: the second compact disc, in particular, is filled with jams that, with some perceptive and meticulous attention to detail, might well have been the source of more original material.
On the other hand, with a retrospect of over a half-century, the presence of a single bonafide song amongst all the bonus content serves to confirm the still-born status of the Blind Faith project. Despite the appearance of two versions of one-time drummer for Elmore James Sam Myers’ “Sleeping In The Ground,” the irony of the song is lost here; such over-repetition might’ve prompted someone involved to call a halt to the proceedings and stipulate how far afield this potentially fruitful endeavor had digressed.
In contrast, an electric version of the arguable highlight of the record, Winwood’s “Can’t Find My Way Home,” suggests why both the author and Eric have so regularly included it in their live repertoire over the years: it is a deeply haunting piece despite the overly-allusive lyrics, the confounding likes of which are also an integral component of “Sea Of Joy,” where bassist Ric Grech (formerly of Family and subsequently Traffic) plays the violin to moving effect.
Winwood’s ageless, soulful voice carries those cuts otherwise, as is almost the case with the opener “Had To Cry Today.” Yet Winwood’s guitar work ultimately emphasizes the magnificent riff at the heart of the composition; in tandem with Clapton and in counterpoint via their respective solos, his embroidery upon that progression productively extends the track to nearly nine minutes.
The bass guitar work by the former lead singer of the Spencer Davis Group presents a more disciplined approach to this cover of Buddy Holly’s “Well All Right.” Such shared self-restraint, not to mention humility, also highlights the distinctive structure of Clapton’s ode to spiritualism, “Presence of the Lord:” Winwood repairs to the piano to back Slowhand’s biting guitar solo after the now-familiar clarion call from the fretboard at the outset of the break.
Blind Faith thus sounds credibly versatile, at least to a point, through much of its solitary studio release. Yet the free flow of ideas was woefully limited, so an extended perspective on the record only reaffirms how stunted was the quartet’s collective imagination.
