Story of BLIND FAITH | Supergroup Documentary

The Million Dollar Time Bomb. The name Blind Faith fit this band perfectly as this supergroup (, consisting of Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Rick Grech and Ginger Baker) skipped development time and was instantly expected to be a major success. This British blues rock band was doomed from the start when it was no longer the escape from Cream that Eric Clapton had been looking for. Today I’m telling the short lived history of Blind Faith.

Blind Faith originally started as something that Eric Clapton had been wanting for several years, to collaborate further with an incredible young musician named Stevie Winwood. But let me back up further so we can get to know these musicians a little bit better.

Eric Patrick Clapton, (Born March 30^th 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, England) got his first guitar at the age of 13 and when he started to take it more seriously a couple of years later, he would learn by spending long hours playing along to his blues records, taking major inspiration from artists like Robert Johnson. He performed on the street as well as with several others in his teenage years then joined The Yardbirds in October of 63 when Clapton was 18. The group’s version of a Beatles inspired song by Graham Gouldman called “For Your Love” was to be released in March of 1965 and it seemed the band was going to continue in this poppier direction. Eric, wanting to play the blues, left the group on the day the successful single was released and suggested that they play with Jimmy Page in his place. He soon joined John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers where he gained a reputation as the best blues guitarist in the area. (Show Clapton is God) (This is where Eric would meet bassist Jack Bruce who had previously left the Graham Bond Organization after disputes with the drummer, Ginger Baker.)

Around this time (and after Jack Bruce had joined Manfredd Mann), American Record label, Elektra records was looking to expand with a division in London and created a sampler compilation album called “What’s Shakin’” that included 3 tracks by a temporary studio band of British musicians. In March of 1966, a group was put together featuring Paul Jones and Jack Bruce of Manfredd Mann, Ben Palmer, Eric Clapton, and vocalist Steve Winwood. Ginger Baker either declined or was unavailable so Steve’s band mate from The Spencer Davis Group, Peter York performed the drums. The group was dubbed Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse and though this was the first time Clapton and Winwood worked together, Clapton had already been aware of the younger musician, wanting to play with Winwood ever since first seeing him perform live with The Spencer Davis Group.

Stephen Lawrence Winwood (Born May 12, 1948 in Handsworth, Birmingham) grew up surrounded by music and instruments as his father was a semi-professional musician. Steve was interested in Swing and Dixie music and started playing piano at the age of 4 and soon tried his hand at the drums and guitar. He played in bands with his father and older brother, Muff at a young age and when he hit puberty and his voice changed, he started imitating the iconic and powerful voice of soul music genius, Ray Charles. For a time, he also performed in a backing band that would support American legends such as Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley when came to perform in the U.K.

In 1963 Spencer Davis recruited the Winwood brothers when Steve was 14 and playing in The Muff Woody Jazz Band. Along with Pete York they formed a band that Muff named The Spencer Davis Group as Spencer was the one who enjoyed doing interviews. In 1964, they had signed a record deal with Chris Blackwell of Island Records who also produced and managed the group. At the end of 1965, the group reached number 1 on the charts with their single “Keep on Running” and the lead vocalist and lead guitarist, 17 year old pop icon, Steve Winwood now had the money to buy himself a sweet hammond organ that he could use to jazz up his band a bit more.

After recording with Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse and a total of 3 studio albums with The Spencer Davis Group, both Steve and his brother Muff left the group in 1967 to find new endeavors. Muff went to work for Island records and Steve, being unhappy about how commercialized the band had become, created a new band called Traffic with some friends that he was able to create new ideas and explore different rhythms with.

I’m sure I’ll talk about the history of Traffic as well as some of these other bands later on my channel so be sure to subscribe to learn more but for now we’re going to skip ahead to when Winwood left the group in early 1969 after two fairly successful albums.

Meanwhile, Eric Clapton had left the Bluesbreakers in early 1966 after forming Cream with Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. From the time Cream first rehearsed as an electric trio, Eric was missing playing with a keyboardist and already had Steve Winwood in mind but the others wanted to carry on as they were. This revolutionary psychedelic blues rock band became a huge success around the world and is thought of today as rock music’s first super group. After just a couple of years, the band was warn out from the pressures of touring, extremely loud amps, and the constant fighting between Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce.

Eric had also become of a fan of The Band, and their music from their debut album, “Music from Big Pink” I, myself am a huge fan of the debut album by The Band and can see why Eric would see creating music inspired by their eclectic and soulful acoustic sound would be the perfect escape from the heavy sound and extended solo sections that Cream had become

Eric hadn’t totally given up on the band and wanted to see if bringing the voice and keys of Steve Winwood into the project might help fix a lot of the issues he was having with the band. But before he had the chance to talk to Winwood about it, he became discouraged and left Cream when Rolling Stone Magazine called him “The Master of the Cliche.”

Leaving the band in hopes to drift off into the background, Eric turned to jamming with Steve Winwood as the perfect way to relax and get away from Cream. But, unfortunately that feeling was very short lived as one day while Eric was hanging out with Steve, there was a knock on the door.

And now it is time to get to know our drummer a little better. Peter Edward Baker was born august 19^th in 1939 in Lewisham, South London and was nicknamed Ginger Baker because of his big red hair. His father had died in World War II when Ginger was just 4 years old. But had left a note for Ginger with some fatherly advice including telling him to defend himself with his fists when he must. He would be toughened by his time hanging with the wrong crowd in his youth as well as from a couple of years in the air force. He began playing drums at about 15 years old and was largely self-taught that took inspiration from some of history’s greatest jazz drummers. In the early ‘60s, he took a few lessons from Phil Seamen, a legendary jazz drummer that introduced Ginger to African music.

He met Jack Bruce when they played together in Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated, then later, when they were in the Graham Bond Organization, Ginger actually pulled a knife on Bruce and kicked him out of the band in August of 1965. After this, Jack would temporarily join John Mayal and the Bluesbreakers where he would meet Eric Clapton when Eric rejoined this group in November of 1965, but Eric wasn’t able to work with the incredibly talented Jack Bruce for long, as Jack soon left to join Manfred Mann.

Not long after this, Ginger felt that since he was basically running the Graham Bond Organisation, he had might as well lead his own band, this time with the cream of the crop, best players around. The first person he thought of for this next band was Eric Clapton. But Clapton only wanted to commit to the project if they recruited Jack Bruce. Eric didn’t understand just how much Ginger and Jack didn’t like each other and naturally Ginger was against the idea at first. The three of them got together for the first time in March of 1966 and Ginger and Bruce were arguing from day 1 but they allowed the music to be the judge on whether or not they should stay together. Jack wanted the band to manage themselves, but Ginger Baker wanted to work with his previous manager from the Graham Bond Organisation. The peculiar Australian named Robert Stigwood became Cream’s manager.

Before Cream said “Goodbye” in late 1968, they had reached number 1 on the charts in numerous countries several times and Ginger Baker’s unique and powerful play style became hugely influential to drummers all over the world.

Young Steve Winwood was won over by Ginger Baker’s charm and felt it would be foolish not to play together after discovering such musical chemistry. Clapton was reluctant to start another band with Baker but eventually Winwood was able to convince him. Steve felt the horror stories about Baker and his Heroin use must have been exaggerated and Winwood didn’t quite understand just how horrified Clapton was at the thought of being in a band with Baker again, while trying to escape his life of superstardom.

At first, Winwood would play basslines on his keyboards, but it was clear that a real bassist was needed in order to allow Winwood to play at his full potential. Clapton had admired the bassist from a band called Family ever since the group was called The Farinas.

Richard Roman Grechko, better known as Rick Grech was born November 1^st 1945 in Bordeaux France to a Ukranian father. And them I went down a rabbit hole for an hour trying to find out if his mom was French or Ukranian. I’m still not sure, but if you know, leave a comment below and if you appreciate all the time I go through to clear up misinformation on the internet, please give this video a “Like” and consider subscribing.

His family moved to Leicester in England when he was young and he played violin in the Leicester City Youth Orchestra. When he was 20 he joined a group called The Farinas which evolved in to an excellent psychedelic and progressive rock band that I will definitely talk about some day on this channel.

Rick recorded bass, violin, and backing vocals on the first two Family albums. He also added some cello to the first album and sings lead vocals on two of the 4 songs that he has songwriting credits for. He had been invited to jam with Eric, Steve, and Ginger and it was naturally accepted that he was the man for the job. However, he didn’t tell his Family members that he was being welcomed into a new family until they had already embarked together on their 1^st U.S. tour in April of 1969. By the end of the stressful month for Family, they flew in guitarist John Weider from Eric Burdon and the Animals to pick up the bass for the first time.

Though the two managers ended up hating each other, it had been decided that Robert Stigwood and Chris Blackwell would manage the unnamed group together. The press was hungry to find info about the world’s first overly hyped up supergroup and you can imagine how both managers were seeing dollar signs and that with such competent musicians, rehearsal time was money lost. By May the group was in the studio to record an album but the group themselves wanted to try to prove to the world that this gathering wasn’t about making money and they scheduled their public debut at a free concert in Hyde Park.

A friend of Eric Clapton, photographer Bob Seidemann was commissioned to create the group’s album cover. He created a piece that he titled “Blind Faith” that featured an innocent young girl holding a symbol of humanity’s creativity and knowledge in the form of a spaceship. Blind Faith was chosen as the band’s name as well since it perfectly captured their situation.

On June 7^th, Blind Faith performed for over 100,000 people with their equipment that was more suitable for a crowd of 3,000. The band was understandably a little nervous about playing their roughly rehearsed material in front of such a huge audience and Clapton, who had been feeling like a let down basically hid behind Ginger Baker while playing very timidly.

The show was recorded and compiled footage was released in 2005 and 06. The group performed all 6 songs that would end up on their debut album and padded out the rest of the set with covers of songs by The Rolling Stones, and Sam Myers as well as a Traffic song written by Winwood. Seeing these incredible musicians performing cover songs was clearly disappointing to many people and you can hear the crowd demanding that they want Cream back.

Within a week, the band was on a short Scandinavian tour and in July they embarked on a tour of the United States in which they would play coliseums and other large stadiums. During the tour, Clapton immediately grew attached to the soulful and folky American act that was supporting them, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends. They were his new escape from the spotlight and he chose traveling with them by bus over joining his own band on an airplane.

The band’s debut album was released in the first part of this 7 week tour on July 21st. It would be a guaranteed #1 with a 250,000 copies already having been pre-ordered. But upon seeing the sleeve, with a nude underage girl, almost 70 % of US dealers canceled their orders. A new sleeve with a picture of the group taken from a concert poster was quickly issued though it contained information on how to request the original artwork from Atlantic Records. (gatefold so it could be displayed but not vulgar?)

Eric had intended for Steve to take the lead in this band so half of the 6 tracks were written by Winwood. His song, “Can’t Find My Way Home” is likely the best known song from the album. It has gorgeous vocals from Winwood most likely singing about drugs having a hold on you and a rare but wonderful acoustic guitar performance by Eric Clapton.

Clapton contributed the excellent track, “Presence of the Lord,” “Well… All Right” is a Buddy Holly classic and Baker is credited as the composer of “Do What You Like,” which is extended with solos from each member to a length of over 15 minutes.

Spirits continued to dampen for many reasons. Baker got more and more into heroin, claiming it due at least in part to Clapton bailing on them. Winwood didn’t want to do a huge coliseum tour and was now understanding how Baker could be a real problem, there had been different issues with security and police at their concerts, and they felt that because the gave in to the requests for classic Cream and Traffic hits, the band had already failed at creating a fresh personality for itself.

After their final concert in Hawaii on August 24^th , the majority of the band returned home, with Winwood and Clapton mutually understanding that the band was over without needing to discuss it and Rick was informed shortly after getting home. Baker however would spend some time in Hawaii before going to Jamaica for a few months in order to be away from sources to heroin. Baker learned about the demise of the band upon his return home.

Blind Faith never reunited, but in October of 1969, George Harrison wanted to produce a Rick Grech solo album with the help of Eric Clapton. The project disolved but two recorded tracks appear as bonus tracks on a 1986 CD Reissue of the Blind Faith album.

Then at the end of 1969, Winwood and Grech would both join Baker for his next project, Ginger Baker’s Air Force. They recorded on the first album by this project and Ginger’s second album under this name has a totally different line up.

Winwood’s attempted a solo album called “Mad Shadows” ended up becoming the absolutely fantastic reunion of his old band Traffic. Rick Grech joined the band when when they toured the album and recorded on their next album as well.

Eric however would accept a random trip over the pond for one concert with John Lennon and the Plastic Ono band then after recording a couple songs with Rick Grech, Eric and George Harrison would slip into the background for a bit while touring some of Europe with Delaney and Bonnie.

I believe Clapton didn’t play with any of these guys again until Rick Grech and Steve Winwood joined Eric Clapton’s Rainbow Concert, a 1973 live album with a rendition of “Presence of the Lord.”

Over the years, Clapton and Winwood have occassionally done short tours in which they performed Blind Faith songs together. Mostly recently they played a tribute to Ginger Baker in February of 2020 as unfortunately Baker left this world on October 6^th, 2019 at the age of 80. Much sadder though is that Rick Grech unfortunately only lived to the age of 44 due to liver failure as a result of his alcoholism on the 17^th of March, 1990.