Blind Faith (1969)

Ultimately I come down in favor of this, but perhaps only because I did so in the first place back in high school. As a super-group, arguably the first, it still seems reasonably potent—notably via Eric Clapton, who doesn't step out nearly enough here, and Steve Winwood, who was never much of a singer but he sure turned into a hell of a talent scout; his keyboard presence here is fairly constant, not to say overbearing. Ginger Baker's star has fallen considerably at this point, however, and I'm not sure bass player Ric Grech (dead in 1990 at the age of 43 due to complications of alcoholism) ever amounted to that much of a super-someone. As a super-session (cf. Al Kooper/Mike Bloomfield projects), it's surprisingly laidback and song-oriented, drawing its primary flavors like so much rock of its time out of the various psychic exhaustions of the late '60s. There's a gospel feel to some of this (Winwood however just mostly a caterwauling wannabe) and a country feel to a lot of it too. Most of the lyrical themes seem to involve redemption in one way or another: "Can't Find My Way Home," "Presence of the Lord," "Sea of Joy," so on and so forth. The centerpiece of the whole thing, and the place where it noticeably picks up the most energy, is the 15-minute workout "Do What You Like," which, though long and complete with unfortunate drum solo (more or less de rigueur for the time, of course), is nonetheless uptempo and sprightly, almost jazzy, and often just plain infectious and exuberant. The attack of Clapton's solo alone is worth the price of admission. It's got a pretty good groove too, certainly the best here by far. I like it quite a bit. I suppose it's fair enough to carp that it goes on too long but I'm more inclined to put that on the album opener, "Had to Cry Today," which is very nearly nine minutes of a whole lot of nuttin'. This always was a side 2 album for the most part. On the matter of the dueling cover art, I used to find the naked 14-year-old girl edgy and arty and to be preferred, which has to say something both about the times we lived in then and those we live in now. It's not even a question for me anymore. Give me the ugly beige version, please, and don't ever even bring up the naked 14-year-old girl again. Some things are just better left in the earth—or for future cyclicals.