Blind Faith - Blind Faith

Blind Faith released one album in 1969, bringing together the talents of Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker and Rick Grech. This album was infamous when I was a kid because it had a topless young girl holding what looked like a chrome airplane. The photograph by Bob Seidemann was titled "Blind Faith" and it would end up being the name of the band and the album.

I never knew there was an alternate cover until I found this one in the dollar bin. I have to admit the cover had seen better days, but the lyric insert was still inside the jacket and the album itself ended up cleaning up quite nicely. All in all, a win win.

Now I was just a wee lad when this came out, so my introduction to some of the songs would come many years later on radio when they'd have their '60s themed lunch hours, or the occasional oldie would crop up on rock radio. The song that seemed to get the most play was "Can't Find My Way Home," which is a brilliant song written by Steve Winwood. Of the six songs on the album, Steve wrote half, with Eric Clapton contributing "Presence of the Lord," and Ginger Baker getting the credit for the nearly sixteen minutes of self indulgent musical wanking that is "Do What You Like," which takes up most of the second side.

One of the things that always bugged me about the songs was the quality of the recording. I don't know if this can be laid at the feet of producer Jimmy Miller. There's no engineer listed, so it's hard to tell. It could also be my stereo ... or not. Having just shit on this, I'm listening to this pretty loud and most of the album sounds pretty good. It's really only the mixing on "Presence of the Lord" where the vocals are buried and it sounds like Clapton is at the bottom of a well. The guitar work (is mixed way out front) of course makes up for everything and by the end all is forgiven, but man, the sound could have been even better. As an aside, the version I first heard of this song was by Larry Norman on his Streams Of White Light Into Darkened Corners from 1977. If you've not heard it I suspect it's on YouTube. This is a spectacular version and Jon Linn (probably the best guitar player you've never heard of) absolutely killed the solo and was faithful to the spirit of the song.

This is an album with one listenable side, and a second I suppose was really enjoyable with headphones and a lot of dope. In a way it's too bad the band didn't squeeze "Sea of Joy" onto side one, then the trippy hippy dippy shit would have been its own little mini-adventure and wouldn't derail the album. I suppose if you're in the mood it's fun, and I'll admit that when I play the record I almost always play both sides.

The album is what it is, and frankly when this was good it was extraordinary. Blind Faith was a one and done and it seems like for a while Clapton was stumbling about in the dark, going from one group to the next as if he was searching for the elusive lost chord.

I was trying to work in a Blind Faith zinger, but I got nothing.

It happens.

They can't all be winners, although once in a while a win would be nice. I just need to believe in myself.

Billy Rankin - Growin' Up Too Fast

Growin' Up Too Fast was never widely released on CD (if at all), and it was one of the albums I really wanted to get back after a basement flood wiped out my vinyl collection in the '90s (when no one really gave a shit about records, and my insurance gave me a couple hundred bucks for an appraised $10,000 collection). Way back in 1984, my (dearly departed and greatly missed) buddy Dave let me borrow his cassette copy, which included a bonus track of "Get It On (Bang A Gong)." When I eventually bought the album, I didn't know it was a bonus track, or even what a bonus track was. If that sentence was hard to read, just go back and skim it. I'm sure you'll get the gist. I'd find out later Billy was an off-and-on-again member of Nazareth and wrote some absolutely killer songs for them. At the time, though, all I knew was this guy laid it out cold with the opening cut, "Baby Come Back," then proceeded to lay down one killer tune after another bef...

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...

Lighthouse - Sunny Days

Bin diving at my local record store where there were more than a few choices to make. After picking out a half dozen treasures, I figured I'd stop looking and leave before I caused myself trouble at home. Lighthouse was one of those ridiculously large bands in the early 70s I didn't understand. I mean really, BTO was just four guys, The James Gang was three, until they weren't, what in the world do you do with a dozen guys in a band? Of course I had a radio — it was the first significant purchase I made with my money from cutting lawns. I think at the time it cost about 35 bucks, and had FM and other high frequency things I never got to use living out in the suburbs away from the reach of the big city FM signal. "Sunny Days" was a great song. I remember thinking it was cool and didn't switch to the other AM station when it came on. A few years later, when I got my first record player, the obligatory K-Tel anthologies would feature a myriad of cut up and edited...

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