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The remastered first and last album by Blind Faith

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 01/28/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It is hard not to look back at the line-up of this short-lived 1969 supergroup and think about what might have been: Eric Clapton on guitar and vocals; Steve Winwood on organ, bass, guitar, piano, keyboards, vocals; and Ginger Baker on percussion and drums. Certainly Blind Faith had the potential to be more than a Cream substitute with Winwood replacing Jack Bruce, because Clapton and Winwood were headed in a different musical direction from either Cream or Traffic. Besides, Clapton and Windwood had decided to team up and Baker was eager to sign on as the drummer when he sat in on their sessions. Of course you can look backwards and see Cream's soulful blues mixed with the emphasis on riffs and the longer song lengths of Traffic, but the result is still rather unique. Just compare it to the rest of what Clapton and Windwood have done, and this 1969 album still stands out as something decidedly different."Blind Faith" is not a great album, but it has some great songs including Clapton's one contribution, "Presence of the Lord," his most personal song until "Tears in Heaven," and Winwood's acoustic duet with Clapton on "Can't Find My Way Home." You would do well to pay attention to the lyrics on both of these songs, which you are required to have in your music library of Sixties music. "Had to Cry Today" and "Sea of Joy" are pretty good, but the album would have been better without the uninspired cover of Buddy Holly's "Well All Right" and Ginger Baker's self-indulgent "Do What You Like." Certainly the group could have come up with something better, but Clapton ended up Delaney and Bonnie before going solo after Blind Faith's one attempt at touring, and that was it for Blind Faith. The blame, such as it is, would fall on Clapton, who was clearly in personal turmoil and who retreated to the relative obscurity of playing with Delaney and Bonnie rather than fronting another bad. This album reached #1 on the Billboard Pop charts and I like to believe that it had something to do with the music, but I remember how often we checked out the album cover on this one at the record stores so Bob Seidemann's provocative cover design comes into play as well."