** Blind Faith

DELUXE EDITION

(Polydor)

A stressed-out Eric Clapton had just left Cream, and Steve Winwood had exited Traffic. In 1969, they were revered as both rock stars and musicians. What's shocking 32 years later is not that their band, Blind Faith, made just one album and lasted only seven months before breaking up: it's that they managed to make an album at all. It was supposed to be just Eric and Steve working out a musical vibe together. But when big bad Ginger Baker from Cream, with a personality as overpowering as his 20-minute drum solos, showed up at Clapton's Surrey estate with his skins, neither budding superstar had the gumption to tell him to go home. By their US tour, booked before an album was completed (with bass player Rick Grech from Family rounding out the foursome), Blind Faith had developed a blinding musical migraine. Though Clapton had hoped to restoke his rock-and-roll passion by communing with the spirit of Buddy Holly, Faith's version of "Well All Right" anticipates '70s pretension rather than recalling '50s innocence. It's tough to stretch what had been little more than a half-hour of music onto two CDs, so Deluxe Edition contains not only some not very interesting outtakes and redundancies, but an entire 60-minute disc consisting of four jams. Only the Winwood-organ-driven "Jam #3" is worth a second listen.

Wayne Robins