Rock: Jam from Old Cream

This is the year of what the trade calls the Supergroup: bright new combinations of established stars drawn from fragmented combos, who are jamming together in much the same way jazz musicians used to do. Early this year, for example, David Crosby (ex-Byrds) got together with Stephen Stills (ex-Buffalo Springfield) and Graham Nash (ex-Hollies) to form a group called, logically enough, Crosby, Stills & Nash. Last month, sounding more and more like a law firm, it became Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when another Springfield boy, Neil Young, joined up. Still another all-star collection is Led Zeppelin, created by Jimmy Page, a retired Yardbird, and three other youthful veterans of the British rock scene.

The most promising new Supergroup so far is an English foursome called Blind Faith. Its members: Singer-Pianist-Guitarist Stevie Winwood, 21, formerly of Traffic; Bassist-Electric Violinist Rick Grech, 23, from Family; Guitarist Eric Clapton, 24, and Drummer Ginger Baker, 30, who were two-thirds of the rock trio called Cream, which broke up last fall. Despite the heavy dose of Cream in its makeup, Blind Faith has a more relaxed, genial and lyrical quality than its predecessor. Musically speaking, Cream was an equal partnership of three hard-driving individualists, who broke up at the peak of their success from internal friction and the pressures of constant playing. With Blind Faith, Winwood does all the singing, while the others provide a solid harmonic core down below. To dazzle audiences, Cream used to display a lot of virtuosity and instrumental grandstanding for its own sake. “Now,” insists Clapton, “the songs stand up themselves, and what we’re playing just complements the songs.”

Proof of this can be found in the group’s first LP, Blind Faith (Atco), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard chart this week and has topped $1,000,000 in sales in only a month. Win-wood’s composition, Can’t Find My Way Home, is a farm-fresh plaint, which he sings in a sad falsetto over Baker’s insinuating brushwork and the harpsichord-like plucking of two acoustic guitars. Blind Faith’s version of the old Buddy Holly tune, Well All Right, skips along with a blithe country feeling, and Clapton’s Presence of the Lord has an ingenuous melody that rides over churchy harmonies and ends on a soothing, strange (for rock) seventh chord.

The formation of Blind Faith was less a conscious decision than a drifting together of old friends who liked to play together in off hours. After Cream and Traffic broke up, Clapton and Winwood began a series of two-man sessions, alternating between Clapton’s $100,000 house in the Surrey hills south of London and Winwood’s whitewashed, $5-a-week farm cottage on the Berkshire downs. Baker, who had known Clapton since they worked together in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, “just showed up” one day and started sitting in. With the addition of Grech, they had a fourth member and the harmonic “middle” that Clapton had always missed in Cream.

Rock pioneers like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane developed a distinctive, cohesive style by playing together in obscurity before they reached stardom. By contrast, the new Supergroups bring together mature musicians with different traditions and personal tastes who are capable of creating what Winwood calls “the great blend in music.” “It’s all coming together —blues, jazz, folk, pop, rock, everything,” he says. The prospects are fascinating. If the trend keeps up, the ultimate Supergroup might one day consist of virtuosos on the sitar, five-string banjo and an electronic Moog, with an ex-Beatle thrown in.