[Slowhand] Blind Faith Festival (that never happened)

[Kevin Wilson]

We have read before that Blind Faith's US debut was to be the Newport Folk
(some say Jazz) Festival  on 11 July 1969. However, these two articles below
seem to indicate that there were plans afoot for a Blind Faith Festival. The
second article goes on to review the Newport Folk Festival, but Blind Faith
had to wait for their US debut the next day at MSG, which did result in a
riot. Such was 1969. (Note that dates in the first article were obviously
tentative and later changed.) - Kevin

 

Spin-Off Group Gets Name; 1st Concert Set

17 May 1969 | Billboard Vol. 81 #20, p.3

 

NEW YORK - The name - Blind Faith - and first concert dates of the group
consisting of Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker (ex-Cream) and Stevie Winwood
(ex-Traffic) were revealed Tuesday (13) by Ahmet Ertegun, president Atlantic
Records. Ertegun also announced the group's first album will be released
June 22, and will be presented at the Atlantic Records distributors sales
meetings.

Fourth member of Blind Faith was finally revealed - Rick Grech, formerly
bass and violin player with Family. Until the end of last week, Grech was
touring the US with Family, but when his contract release was finally
settled he flew back to the UK to join Clapton, Winwood and Baker in the
recording studios.

Blind Faith will begin their first US tour on July 11 at a Blind Faith
Festival at Newport, RI, followed by an eight-week, 24-concert tour. Dates
already set include Madison Square Garden, New York (Aug. 2), Oakland
Coliseum (10) and Los Angeles Forum (15).

Joint managers of Blind Faith, Robert Stigwood and Chris Blackwell, said
that guarantees for the concerts would bring the group $750,000 but, with
expected sellouts, the figure could gross in excess of $1 million.

Stigwood formerly managed the Cream, while Blackwell, who also heads up
Island Records in the UK, managed Traffic and Winwood.

In the US Atlantic will release the Blind Faith product but in the UK
distribution will be through Polydor and Island, with Polydor distributing
throughout the rest of the world. The first album, still untitled, will be
heard by distributors in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles simultaneously.

Blind Faith's first public appearance will be at a free concert in London's
Hyde Park on June 7 before an expected audience of 100,000. Before the US
tour, the group will make a short tour of Scandinavia.

 

Newport's Folk Festival Scores with Varied Acts

9 August 1969 | Craig Stinson | Billboard Vol. 81 #32, p.32

 

NEWPORT, RI - George Wein has apparently got himself out of the woods again
thanks to the good behavior of everyone at the Newport Folk Festival. There
had been reports following the row at this year's jazz festival that the
City of Newport, besides cancelling Wein's Blind Faith Festival (scheduled
for July 12) might close down the folk festival as well - in effect running
the impresario out of town. Wein reportedly got a stay of execution by
promising greater security, better sanitation facilities and strict
adherence to Newport's 12 o'clock curfew regulation.

The curfew was not observed so strictly as Newport might have desired. But
the concerts were over before 12:30 each night (record time for the Newport
festivals), and the public maintained decorum once again that business is
after all business, and 10 or 20,000 young consumers (upward of 50,000 for
the jazz festival) are not to be sneezed at.