Not Cream, Not Derek And The Dominos: Eric Clapton's Supergroup That Vanished In A Flash

Eric Clapton has lent his slowhand to several bands since the early '60s, but the shortest-lived was Blind Faith. Sandwiched between Clapton's time with Cream and Derek and the Dominos, Blind Faith formed in early 1969, toured Europe and the U.S., released an album, and disbanded by the end of August. The band came and went in a flash, but they left behind a No. 1 album and a couple of popular songs that plenty of people likely still remember, including "Can't Find My Way Home."

The trajectory of Blind Faith was deeply influenced by the fact that it was a supergroup, including Clapton, drummer Ginger Baker of Cream, keyboardist and singer Steve Winwood of Traffic, and bassist Rick Grech of Family. They all found themselves free agents after their previous bands split up, and their loose jam sessions evolved into becoming a new band. But as Winwood explained to Louder, there were built-in expectations from each musician's management, and even though they were a new group still working out songs and how to play them live, their reputations as established rockers meant they were expected to be a full-fledged band performing in front of huge crowds right from the jump.

Their first show was on June 7, 1969, at London's Hyde Park in front of 100,000 people, and that was before they even released an album. Winwood told Louder, "People saw Blind Faith before they heard them. It was a great gig, actually, even though we were still wrestling with the concept. We didn't really know what we were about." 

From London, the tour moved to Scandinavia for a few dates in June before Blind Faith came to the U.S., where they kicked off that leg of their tour at Madison Square Garden on July 12. According to what Eric Clapton told Rolling Stone in 1970, the group wasn't ready for that kind of venue. He called the band at that time "very frail," saying, "... in the context of something like Madison Square Garden where you've got many thousands of people who've seen hundreds of better bands, or, you know, like Hendrixes in the audience. And you've got this fantastically kind of fragile thing on stage, and you're trying to keep it tight and do what you think the audience deserves, and they're all screaming and shouting. It's a completely impossible situation."

The issue seemed to stem from too much happening too fast before the band had a strong hold on their own identity together, and then being put on big stages to perform even though their sound had continually evolved from the time they were just noodling around for fun to when they were working on recording the album to playing in front of massive audiences. One of the best supergroups in history didn't even have much material for their shows, but they were scrambling to rise to the challenge. Clapton said the band was pretty much crushed under the weight of the pressure during the American tour, but they finished it, and then they were done.

Blind Faith's only album went to No. 1 on the album charts and stayed there for two weeks in both the U.K. and the U.S in September 1969. The self-titled LP contains a mere six songs, but it went gold the year it came out and reached platinum status in 1993.