Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CDXXXVI--Blind Faith: Can't Find My Way Home

 A few years back I heard wisps of this week's tune while watching a (not particularly interesting) documentary about racist/conspiracy theorist nutjob Eric Clapton (tell us how you really feel, emaycee!), and I knew I recognized the song but had no idea who had done it.  Thanks to a quick internet search, I discovered it was an album-oriented rock staple on FM stations back in the day...which is most likely where I knew it from....

Blind Faith formed in 1969 when Clapton (Jukebox CLXXV as a member of Derek and the Dominoes) and Steve Winwood (Jukebox CCCLXXXIV) decided they wanted to do some playing together.  Agents/promoters quickly seized on the pairing of the famous duo and an album was rush released and a three-month tour was undertaken.  At which point Clapton decided it was considerably more effort than he wanted to expend, and the band was no more.  There were apparently few hard feelings as Clapton and Winwood have joined forces in concert on a few occasions in the intervening years.  Both men would go on to have quite a bit of solo success, and their one-off musical endeavor is considered a classic.

Fun Fact:  The album cover of their lone LP featured a prepubescent topless girl...which caused quite the stir in America and the cover was changed to a generic photo of the band.  It would eventually be released with the original artwork some years later.  God only knows the fuss such an album cover would cause today....

"Can't Find My Way Home" was featured on the band's only LP, the oh, so creatively entitled Blind Faith.  The song was not released as a single (except for some odd ass reason in the Netherlands--so many cool Dutch kids!), while the album would hit #1 in both the U.S. and the U.K.

From the song's eerie instrumental opening to Winwood's otherworldly falsetto vocals, "Can't Find My Way Home" is a masterclass in just how far the envelope can be pushed in pop music.  Clapton's guitar has echoes of raga and Ginger Baker's jungle drums both give you the feeling that you're lost, walking down the streets in some exotic locale like Algiers or Budapest.  It's been surmised that the song is about either trying to kick a drug habit or the search for God, but either way the band captured the feeling in a stunning fashion.  Three minutes and seventeen seconds of brilliance.

Lyric Sheet:  "Come down off your throne and leave your body alone/Somebody must change/You are the reason I've been waiting so long/Somebody holds the key..."

Enjoy:

Republicans = Nazis

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCCXXXIV--Steve Winwood: While You See a Chance

I'd been working for Camelot Music about five months when this week's tune came out--all I remember of it at the time was that I didn't like it much.  Fast forward a few years and it came on the radio as I was driving to work one morning, and I remember thinking to myself."Why in the hell didn't I like this song?  This is a great song!"  And my epiphany would become the first of many through the years.

While most of us were playing with our toys and watching TV when we were in grade school, Steve Winwood was backing blues musicians such as B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Muddy Waters on their U.K. tours playing organ and guitar.  He joined his first band, the Spencer Davis Group, when he was fourteen, and the band had a number one hit in the U.K. by the time Winwood was 17.  He left shortly thereafter for the seminal sixties band Traffic, and then after several albums left them to help form Blind Faith (with among others, Eric Clapton).  In the late seventies Winwood finally got around to pursuing a solo career (at the ripe old age of 29), and it was there he had his greatest commercial success.  For his solo career, Winwood has released nine studio albums, with three top tens in the U.K. and three top fives in the U.S. (including one number one).  He has also released 25 singles, with six top ten hits in the U.S., including two #1's (for whatever odd reason, Winwood did not have nearly the single chart success in the U.K.).  Winwood has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Traffic, but surprisingly has not been inducted as a solo artist.  Though Winwood has not released a new album since 2008, he continues to tour regularly 

"While You See a Chance" was the first single released from Winwood's second solo album, Arc of a Diver  in 1981.  The song reached #7 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and the LP hit #3 on the Billboard 200.

Fun Fact:  Winwood is a multi-instrumentalist, and played all of the instruments on Arc of a Diver, as well as the release that followed, Back in the High Life.  

"While You See a Chance" is a carpe diem song, with Winwood exhorting us to take our best shot at both love and life.  Winwood's organ (synthesizer?) playing drives the song throughout, giving Winwood's exhortation an invigorating backdrop.  But in the end, it's Winwood's vocals (blue-eyed soul, an emaycee fave) that takes the song to another level.  Winwood has said his singing style was patterned after Ray Charles, and while he's not quite as gifted vocally as Charles, it's easy to see the similarities, especially the guttural, from the heart soul that resonates from the tips of your toes to the ends of your fingers.  Just another dazzling piece of pop music.

Lyric Sheet:  "Stand up in a clear blue morning/Until you see what can be..."

Enjoy:

It Was an Insurrection--the Blood of Those Killed on January 6th Is on Republican Hands

Peace,

emaycee