Review of Blind Faith's Blind Faith

Released 1969

"I'm taking the chance to see the wind in your eyes while I liste.
You say the can't reach me, but you want every word to be free.
Hard to cry today.
Well, I saw your sign and missed you there"

This is one of those albums which I have absolutlely no memory of physically buying. Given that I'm still at that phase in my chronology where I should be able to distinguish between whether or not a purchae was pre my time at University, I find this very odd.

Around this time, I was still largely unaware of Steve Winwood, other than his renowned talent as the teenaged front man of The Spencer Davis Group. I had heard of Traffic, but not heard any of their work. I had mixed opinion of Eric Clapton too. Through my obsession with Led Zeppelin and connection to Eric through The Yardbirds, I had collected most of EC's pre-Cream work, including the infamous 'Beano' Bluesbreakers record which inspired a whole generation of budding blues guitarists. I'm sure I would have had a Cream Greatest Hits of some descrition. I started to lose interest though with some of his seventies output; for instance I ended up becoming a  fan of The Allman Brothers on the back of Layla as oposed to seeing this as a masterwork of Claptons, while the drift towards MOR with the I Shot The Sherriff era of his work left me cold.

As such, I can't precisely place where and when I set out to purchase Blind Faith's eponyomous album. I can only assume that I was heavily influenced by a friend at University who had a strong devotion to the blueser end of the prog spectrum. We both loved Free for example. I know that he later introduced me to Traffic, therefore I can lay the blame squarely in his court.

To this day I am puzzled by the cover; both in terms of it's relevance to the musical content and how it remains uncensored when much less offensive pieces of sleeve art have fallen the way of the nanny state.

I didn't have too many preconceptions about the album prior to purchase and most likely saw it as one of those purchases which was almost expected: a record collection without a copy of Blind Faith was not a record collection which could be taken seriously.

My immediate reaction was one of huge surprise that I hadn't realised just how good Steve Winwood's voice was. As I had only known him as a mainstream pop artist, to hear such a strong blues rock voice was a real treat. His style bestrode so many genres; from psychedelia, across blues, mainstream classic rock whilst retaining a soulful quality. Had To Cry Today was more experimental than I expected; having much in common with the later drifting jams of The Allman Brothers, but with a more intense rhythm. Clapton's contribution was a simple yet effective recurring blues driven motif, which on first listen I thought was workmanlike, until he starts soloing in a way which I've never heard him play before or since; much more fluid with more space between the notes, fully embracing the hippy vibe. What really made me sit up and take notice was the remarkalble solo which starts after around six minutes and forty five seconds, where notes bounce rapidly from speaker to speaker; a brilliant moment which tapped directly into the zeitgeist; perfectly channeling the very spirit of the age in eight seconds. Listening to this on headphones now, forty years (for goodness sake!) after it's release, these eight seconds capture everything I love about the cultural movement of the late sixties. Sublime.

Can't Find My Way Home begins with a delicious acoustic guitar and wonderfully understated drumming from Ginger Baker. I find it impossible to describe the intensity of Steve Winwood's vocal delivery on this track. It is such a beautifully measured three minutes or so which again appeals so strongly to anyone who has indeed been so wasted that they can't find their way home. I often listen to this track mentally picturing the wandering gait of a drunken journey back from the pub.

Well... All right took much longer to grow on me, being more piano orientated with quite an obstrusive drum pattern from Ginger. I prefer the second  half of the track which feels more free form and has more of the spirit of the previous tracks.

Presence Of The Lord is the weakest track on the record for me. It feels too personally aligned to Eric and less of a band effort. The key strength of the album as a whole is the feeling that it is a true band vision in the very best sense of the word. One of the reasons I am so passionate about the musical output of (primarily) 1967 - 1976 is the sense that musicians often created pieces of art which felt as though they could have been born of out a live take in the studio, such was the quality of the muscianship. Blind Faith's only album is one of the greatest examples of this: four tremedous musicians at the peak of their careers working as one.

It is Steve Winwood's vocal and keyboard playing which dominate Sea of Joy. His portrayl of emotion is pretty much without parallel. The violin dominates the latter half of the track. It shouldn't work in the context of a predominantly blues based framework, but somehow it does.

Do What You Like is the high point of the album. I hear similiarities in the production of this track and very early Chicago; when they were still The Chicago Transit Authority. I admire Ginger Baker's restraint; it would  have been very easy to add standard rock fills in the open spaces between the keyboards and the free-form vocals. Clapton's guitar styling in this track must surely have influenced the very young Carlos Santana ( who played Woodstock a month after this was released). Indeed it does have a latino feel for much of the track. It is usually very hard to say anything positive about a drum solo, but it nearly works here. It is indulgent and it is distracting, and it does take a few listens before a certain level of annoyance begins to vanish.

Although I may have originally only set out to fill a gap in my record collection, I now have a great deal of affection for this record. It utterly captures my favourite era of music in a way which is unique and endearing. Truly indispensible.

Review of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland

Released 1968

"Starfish and giant foams, greet us with a smile. Before our heads go under, we take a last look At the killing noise of the out of style... The out of style, out of style"


Like any fan of rock music, I was exposed to the iconography of Jimi Hendrix very early. Every music magazine, every music book referred back to his influence. His inimitable presence was so integral to the spirit of rock music, and specifically the rock music of the period in which I was fascinated, and over and over again my heroes would wax rhapsodically about his unique and profound influence, it was inevitable that at some point I would have had to see what all the fuss was all about. In a short period of time, I watched his performances at the Monterey Jazz Festival, at Woodstock and The Isle of Wight Festival, conscious of his omnipresence and seeming omnipotence over the late sixties music scene; an otherworldly being from another time.

However, Hendrix will remain forever imprinted on me as per the image in the wonderful book, Rock Dreams (reproduced above left).
In this incredible book, his unique talent was explained by the fact that he was, in fact a Martian; literally worlds apart from us mere human mortals.

Like many, my first Hendrix album was a tentative best-of compilation. This ticked all the right boxes, confirmed his pedestal placement and whetted the appetite for more.

I probably choose Electric Ladyland as my first Hendrix purchase proper based on the perverse thrill of the melee of naked women adorning the cover. I recognised a couple of the tracks but in the main this was a new beginning for me.

Any doubts that Hendrix had true prog credentials are put to one side from the weirdness of the opening sound scape. It was all backwards vocals, huge drums and effects that were impossible to identify. It set the scene nicely. Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) cemented the theme that this was to be as ambitious an album as I had yet encountered.

Although everyone always (obviously) focuses on Hendrix's guitar ability, I remain continually amazed how little comment is made about his vocal skills. I mentioned in my review of LA Woman that between Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, any aspiring rock vocalist will found all the inspiration they need to perfect natural vocal rock phrasing; unforced and inspired. Listen to all the asides in Cross Town Traffic for many perfect examples.

When I first heard Voodoo Chile, I was unaware that the more familiar 'Slight Return' version was, in effect, a poor cousin of this monster of a jam. The interplay between Hendrix and Steve Winwood on the organ is one my favourite improvisations period. The appreciative audience in the studio adds hugely to the spirit of the age. As Mr Mojo himself would later comment, this really is a 'stoned immaculate' performance; encapsulating the blues and psychedelic influences whilst truly progressing rock music.

That Hendrix passed the vocal duties to Noel Redding for Little Miss Strange, for me didn't detract from the effectiveness of the track at all. This song needed a more 'twee', mid-sixties pop styled vocal, which Hendrix's stoned Southern drawl simply wasn't suited to.

Another attraction of Electric Ladyland was and is the huge diversity of music on offer. There are vast complex meandering jams, relatively simple verse-chorus-verse, etc, pop-orientated tracks, as well as pure blues and some tracks which are beyond genre categorisation, even now, forty years later.

I may have been familiar with Burning Of The Midnight Lamp before Electric Ladyland, but when listened to in context alongside this diversity of musical styles, it was difficult not to marvel at the magnitude of his talent. There is more invention across the four sides of Electric Ladyland than in the entire career of many of his esteemed peers.

When I came across Rainy Day, I had to ask what Miles Davis must have thought looking over his shoulder from the Bitches Brew sessions. Here was psychedelic jazz with horns and organs, influencing the whole jazz fusion movement which would emerge in the next few years. Truly innovative.

For many, the greatest achievement of the album is 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be). It is clearly the most out and out prog track of the album. Beautiful percussion, restrained guitar and ethereal lyrics combine to provide an entirely legal high.

Still Raining, Still Dreaming must have had Hendrix's contemporaries weeping with envy at his dexterity and invention, while All Along The Watchtower is surely a contender for the greatest cover version. Possibly my favourite opening ten seconds of any track, ever.

When I realised that the song I was most familiar with before listening to the Electric Ladyland, was the classic 'Slight Return' version of Voodoo Chile, and that it was at least paralleled in its excellence across almost the entire album, I knew that this was a classic album by any measure.

Utterly unique and all the better for it, this is the one Hendrix album that anyone should own.