Almost 30 years after their one and only album came out, I
\nseriously wonder why anyone considered Blind Faith a
\nsupergroup.<\/p>\n
Sure, it took two of the best-known non-Beatle names in British
\nmusic, Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton, and threw them together in
\nan unlikely marriage with bassist Ric Grech and drummer Ginger
\nBaker. It is surprising to hear Clapton working with Baker, two of
\nthe three members of the then recently-deceased Cream. This was a
\nmarriage that was, in fact, doomed from the start – the band lasted
\nless than a year together – and their self-titled release is an
\nalbum I’d be hard-pressed to call a classic in any fashion.<\/p>\n
Of the six songs on this release, the only one that shines to my
\nears is “Can’t Find My Way Home,” a piece that highlights Winwood’s
\nvoice and Clapton’s acoustic (or is that dobro?) guitar work. It
\ndoesn’t go for the bombast that makes up most of the rest of the
\nalbum, and remains one song that is rightfully revered to this
\nday.<\/p>\n
But you know the rest of the album is in trouble from the start
\nof “Had To Cry Today,” the album’s opener. I will admit that some
\nof Clapton’s guitar work is pretty fanciful on this one, and it is
\ninteresting to hear him layer guitar solos together near the end of
\nthe song. However, the song engages in far too much repetition of
\nmusical ideas, and damned if Winwood’s voice doesn’t go south twice
\n(once hardly noticeable, once painfully obvious).<\/p>\n
The rest of the album doesn’t fare much better. “Well All Right”
\nisn’t a
\nterrible<\/i> song by any means, but it rambles a bit before it
\ngets to the core of the song. “Presence Of The Lord,” the only song
\nwhich Clapton wrote on the album, might have been his first leaning
\ntowards the spirituality he would embrace on a few of his solo
\nalbums, but this has a plodding beat, sounding almost like a church
\nhymn. I don’t think Winwood knew quite what to do with the track in
\nthe vocals department.<\/p>\n
“Sea Of Joy” is another track that falls into the “just there”
\ncategory, while “Do What You Like” is a jerk-off drum solo showcase
\nfor Baker, who for once doesn’t impress me with his trap work.
\nGoing from a poor band track to a boring drum solo (peppered with
\nan annoying mantra of “do what you like” repeated by the band in
\nthe background) makes this one damned near unlistenable.<\/p>\n
But what about Grech’s bass work, you might ask? Well, what
\nabout<\/i> it? With the exception of on “Had To Cry Today” during
\nClapton’s solos, Grech’s bass gets hidden in the mix, and he
\ndoesn’t do anything to try to separate himself from the rest of the
\nband.<\/p>\n
I’m sure I’m gonna hear from a lot of people on this one, but
\nlet’s face it: if
\nBlind Faith<\/i> was so damned good, how come the band imploded
\nso quickly? (And,
\nyes<\/i>, I know that Derek & The Dominoes suffered the same
\nfate – we’ll talk about them some other day.)
\nBlind Faith<\/i> is an album that has been painted as a classic
\nby many people, but it is really a poor forgery of a
\nsupergroup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7424],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-39042","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-blind-faith","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39042"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39042"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}