Cream vs Blind Faith: Who was more successful?
Boasting guitar duties in both Cream and Blind Faith, Eric Clapton was already a lauded musician before the 1960s were even out.
Along with forming a third of The Yardbirds’ illustrious guitar alumni with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, and counting albums with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers plus Derek and the Dominoes, for years, Clapton eagerly worked within the unit of the band before truly embarking on a solo career in earnest. But for many of his biggest fans, the guitar maestro will always be defined by his tenure with Cream and Blind Faith.
While a bluesman at heart, Clapton heralded the era’s psychedelia with Cream, deploying heavy fuzz attack with lashings of the era’s pop lysergia that scored the day’s swinging counterculture. Joining forces with Graham Bond Organisation’s Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, the enduring power trio would lay the groundwork for both metal and prog, Cream’s acid-friend live shows often stretched certain numbers as much as 20 minutes. Further endearment was forged with the hippies from Clapton’s far-out Gibson SG, slapped with trippy dazzle by Dutch art collective The Fool, responsible for The Beatles’ Apple HQ’s initial psychedelic exterior.
Four albums later, and Cream began to run out of steam. Around the time of their aptly-titled Goodbye, Clapton and Baker began jamming under the name Blind Faith with Traffic’s Steve Winwood and Family’s Ric Grech in the new project’s fold. Much buzz was had surrounding the new supergroup, 1969’s eponymous LP topping both the UK and US album charts, and their free concert live debut attracting as many as 100,000 to Hyde Park.
The magic ebbed as soon as it started, however. Clapton lost interest in Blind Faith pretty quickly, moving on to John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band before joining forces with members of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends for 1970’s Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. Baker would eke out his Air Force band with Grech and Windwood before dissolving after a handful of shows, and the occasional Clapton cameo with Traffic would spark perennial rumours of a Blind Faith reunion.
While Cream enjoys a deeper countercultural stature but Blind Faith witnessed an intense flurry of commercial and fan attention, which band exactly sold the most records is a hard estimate.
So, who was more successful?
Blind Faith enjoys considerable sales considering its brief existence and counting only one studio album, selling an estimated 10.2 million, half a million copies of their first album in the first week alone. Yet, losing legs swiftly and unravelling as a long-term project, Blind Faith was never able to quite hit any real commercial peaks.
Cream trounces Blind Faith, which is likely to be no real surprise. The trio confidently counts a healthy 15 million records sold worldwide, 1968’s Wheels of Fire, the first platinum-selling double album ever, and conjured truly popular hits across both sides of the Atlantic with ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ and ‘White Room’. As the years roll by, the music world can be fairly certain that Cream will always define Clapton’s long and storied career.
