Blind Faith

Blind Faith were an English blues rock band, composed of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech. The band, which was one of the first "super-groups", released their only album, Blind Faith, in August 1969. They were stylistically similar to the bands in which Winwood, Baker, and Clapton had most recently participated,Traffic and Cream. They helped to pioneer the genre of blues/rock fusion.

The beginnings of Blind Faith date from mid-1968, with the break-up of Cream. In retrospect as the first "super-group," Cream had become a financial powerhouse, selling millions of records within a few years and raising the group's (and each member's) repertoire to international popularity. Despite that success, the band was crumbling from within because of frequent animosity between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, with Eric Clapton doing his best to mediate.^{[citation needed]} In addition, Clapton had tired of playing commercially driven blues and hoped to move forward with a new, experimental, less straitjacketed approach to the genre.^{[citation needed]}

Steve Winwood was facing similar problems in The Spencer Davis Group, where he had been the lead singer for three years. Winwood wanted to experiment with the band's sound by infusing jazz elements, but left due to his musical differences, instead forming a new band — Traffic — in 1967. That band split temporarily in 1969, and Winwood started to jam with his good friend Clapton in Clapton's basement in Surrey, England. Winwood and Clapton had previously collaborated on the "Powerhouse" project.