Talk:Blind Faith

two articles needed?

Shouldn't there only be one page discussing Blind Faith? It seems to me that the history of the band and the album are one and the same. Unlike Derek and the Dominoes, only one album was ever released or attempted by Blind Faith. Alcuin 15:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

It should probably stay as it is. Every other band has a page for the band and a page for the album. I don't see a reason to break the format.

I did it anyway, there was too much duplication of info between the two pages, and all info was relevant to any discussion of either the band or the album. Alcuin 23:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Note also that Blind Faith (the group) released only one album and was actually named after the cover artwork on the album. Zigamorph 16:03, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually it was sly and cynical nickname given to the band by Clapton who expressed his belief that he band would succeed as Blind Faith although the band started without a name and would later choose that name months after its incarnation.

Expanding the Article into two With the size and quality of the information provided now I would agree that a combination of the articles would be wise but I"m willing to solely add about 4 times the amount of info there and with that much info the page should be more appropriately divided. There is a humongous amount of back-story and history behind the band that I think deserves to be on a separate page and there is also enough information to make a very large album page as well. Also noted like earlier, most bands have one or two albums alone still have a separate page for band and album and I think this band really deserves that distinction as well. Patman2648 05:39, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I've since created and expanded the album and will remove the info from this page and replace it with the immense back story and history of the band. Patman2648 01:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Fine with me (I'm the guy that merged them a while back), looking forward to seeing the additional content on both pages. Please be careful not to duplicate the content of the pages, or leave info on one page that is more relevant to the other. Alcuin 02:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your support and I should have them finished by the end of the night and I'll make sure not to duplicate the pages and misappropriate the info. I totally agree with what you did with merging them at the time because alone as they stood they had such little information and that way would be the best to view them but hopefully with my new additions they'll be big enough to satisfy most. Thanks again for the comment and your support Patman2648 02:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Pages already look great. Thanks for putting so much time into this.Alcuin 03:29, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

(I wonder what the record is for most indentations on a talk page?)Alcuin 03:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

hahahaha, I know! Its the most spacing I've ever seen, hopefully we'll get some Barnstars for the spacing and thank you for the compliment on the looks, I tinkered with the pictures alot so I'm trying to get it pretty. I think its one the best articles I've ever done, I just love Clapton, I also created and wrote 99% of Derek & The Dominos and added a crapload to The Yardbirds and Eric Clapton the page itself, Clapton deserves my time and I'm happy to give it to him. Hey for the bottom image, the small one, do you like it how it is or would you move to the left or just delete it, I'm not sure and would really like your opinion. Thanks again and enjoy the article! Patman2648 05:43, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

As much as I hate to lose a picture, that one is too small to be useful. I don't think I've ever looked at it.Alcuin 12:34, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll promptly get rid of it, it is ridiculously small. Thanks for inciteful response. Patman2648 22:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

"Stylistically similar to the bands of which its members began their professional careers, Traffic and Cream"

"Blind Faith" is indeed stylistically similar to Traffic and Cream, but neither of those bands were the bands of which its members began their professional careers!

Steve Winwood started in The Spencer Davis Group, and Eric Clapton started in the Yardbirds.

Pepe Verde

Be bold and fix stuff like that. Alcuin 15:48, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

You're right mate! i just (a) wasn't sure how to and (b) fell funny about correcting it, like i hadn't authority enuff... i'll remember your wise words :-)

Pepe Verde

Don't feel funny, that's the cool thing about this place. A person's 'right' to edit depends solely on whether their intentions are good or not. I recommend getting an account, tho, it does make a lot of things easier and spiffier. Cheers. Alcuin 02:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The Spaceship In the Controversial Album

I believe that the "spaceship" the girl is holding is the hood ornament from a Bel-Air.

It's not a hood ornament. In my original contributed text, which has since been removed (to my displeasure), I explained the history of the space ship:

The cover art was created by photographer Bob Seidemann, a personal friend and former flatmate of Clapton's who is primarily known for his photos of Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. In the mid-1990s, in an advertising circular intended to help sell lithographic reprints of the famous album cover, he explained his thinking behind the image[1] [2]:

I could not get my hands on the image until out of the mist a concept began to emerge. To symbolize the achievement of human creativity and its expression through technology a space ship was the material object. To carry this new spore into the universe innocence would be the ideal bearer, a young girl, a girl as young as Shakespeare's Juliet. The space ship would be the fruit of the tree of knowledge and the girl, the fruit of the tree of life.

The space ship could be made by Mick Milligan, a jeweler at the Royal College of Art. The girl was another matter. If she were too old it would be cheesecake, too young and it would be nothing. It was the beginning of the transition from girl to woman, that is what I was after. That temporal point, that singular flare of radiant innocence. Where is that girl?

Seidemann wrote that he approached a young girl reported to be 14 years old on the London Tube about modeling for the cover and eventually met with her parents, but that she proved too old for the effect he wanted. Instead, the model used was her younger sister, who was reported to be 11 years old. Her modeling fee, according to Seidemann, was "a young horse" purchased for her by band manager Robert Stigwood.

Zigamorph 16:59, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

All that info is there about the spaceship but just in the album page Blind Faith (album) and I just wrote a brief synposis of the info because I didn't want the two pages to have the same info, the album page focus more on the album/album art and band page more on the band. - Patman2648 04:42, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

A note re edits to "Formation and early history"

In light of the extensive editing I've done here, I thought a few words of explanation might be appreciated. As I was reading through this section, I couldn't help but be struck by the serious need for punctuation and grammatical fixes. (I am a published writer/editor, and have a good deal of experience doing this sort of thing.) I've done my very best to retain as much as possible of the original wording, style, etc., while improving the clarity, and strengthening the coherence and structure of each of the paragraphs. Cgingold 12:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Your edits have been very productive and much needed, no need to explain and it'd be much appreciated if would continue to update and fix the errors associated with the page. Thank you and keep up the good work. - Patman2648 19:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, it's good to know you appreciate the work. BTW, I've got a question for you: whose basement was it in Surrey?-I think it was Clapton's, but it's not clear from the wording of the sentence -- it could actually go either way. Cgingold 00:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It was Clapton's basement at his home there and continue the great work. - Patman2648 06:09, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Was or Were?

There's a note at the top of this article:

• Blind Faith were (!--DO NOT change "were" to "was", it's grammatically incorrect--)

I wonder if this is correct. Blind Faith is a group, which is thus identified as a unit. According to the Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, "A noun that is singular in construction takes a singular verb when it is used as a subject...." But perhaps this is a difference between American and British usage. Does anyone have an explanation? Toyalla 18:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Your educated guess was quite right. In British usage, "group nouns" (for lack of a better term) are treated as though they were in fact plural nouns. Takes a little getting used to for us Yanks. :) But given that it's a British group, I think their preference takes precedence. Cgingold 20:05, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you cite that with a legitmate source? --Bentonia School (talk) 14:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for teaching me something. If it's a British group, we can certainly stick with British usage. But Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is the first hip hop group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Toyalla 04:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

As a British user, I'm pretty sure that third person singular verb form eg 'was' is gramatically correct for singular group nouns, though the third person plural verb form eg 'were' is colloquial. I think I might be penalised if I wrote a university essay with the phrase 'the family were very rich' as opposed to 'the family was very rich' or 'the members of the family were very rich'. Uakari (talk) 04:53, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Subject-verb agreement

"In British English, collective nouns (referring to groups of people) are often followed by a plural verb even when the noun is singular. This does not occur in American English. For example:

   British English: 	The football team are rather weak this year.
   American English: 	The football team is very weak this year.

Other common collective nouns that often take a plural verb in British English are: army, company, jury, audience, crowd, majority, class, enemy, staff, committee, government and union."

http://www.macmillandictionaries.com/med-magazine/October2003/12-Language-Awareness-British-American-UK.htm

"In British English, collective nouns are more often treated as plurals that take plural verbs."

http://dictionary1.classic.reference.com/help/faq/language/g28.html

Vytal (talk) 02:43, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Blues/rock pioneers?

I disagree with the statement in the article that states Blind Faith helped to pioneer the blues/rock fusion. Before Blind Faith's album was released in 1969, there already had been a lot of bands that had been playing blues or 'blues-rock'. The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, The Yardbirds, John Mayhall and the Bluesbreakers, Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Big Brother & Holding Company, and so on. Even Led Zeppelin's debut album, which is very heavy on blues, was released before Blind Faith's album. The statement in the article is simply misleading. --Bentonia School 17:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, it's been a while and no one had responded. I'm removing the part that says that Blind Faith helped to pioneer blues-rock. --Bentonia School (talk) 14:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Anyway it's much better than the 'rock-and-roll band' which I reverted. A rock-and-roll band, not just 'rock', at the end of the sixties was something of an anachronism; bands or people sticking to the Chuck Berry songbook and the like.al (talk) 17:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about "pioneered", but "popularised", certainly. LoveEverybodyUnconditionally (talk) 19:45, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Blind Faith/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs) 03:55, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

I'll take this; looks like solid work, should be quick. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:55, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Checklist

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   All concerns addressed

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   All concerns addressed

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   Refs appropriately formatted.

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   All sources seem solid, nice work.

   C. It contains no original research:

   Spotchecks are fine; one source link appears to be broken, but it's uncontroversial stuff so I'll leave it for you to fix later.

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   Earwig's tool flags people copying from Wikipedia

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   No issues

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   Image license checks out, so far as I can tell. I imagine there's images of the four members available, which could be added; but that's just a suggestion, not a GA issue since the main image is present.

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   All comments addressed, passing shortly.

Comments

• "At one point, the pair thought they might record with Duck Dunn and Al Jackson Jr., the rhythm section of Booker T. & the M.G.'s, though the music press hoped that Clapton would form a band that would outdo Cream" The "though" here seems to connect pieces that don't really contradict each other; I would suggest breaking this into two sentences.

Done Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:18, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• "Cream-like" super-stardom situation I know what you mean (and it made me chuckle) but it strikes me as a little colloquial.

Reworded; though "independently notable" sounds like WikiSpeak (though I suppose it's relevant here; Clapton wanted a band, not just a collection of separately famous people playing obliviously to each other) Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:18, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

How about the wordier but maybe clearer "band whose members had large reputations individually"? Your solution works too, though.

Hmm, I prefer this suggestion here, so let's go with that. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:46, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• Traffic is described as being on hiatus in one paragraph, and dead ("demise") in the next; I suppose either term could be used, but it jars a little bit.

I've taken out the start of the sentence "Following the demise of". It's obvious from the prose that the decision to form a group came while the pair were at a loose end. Without looking back, I think Winwood's biography says he wasn't keen to formally break up Traffic as the other group members were his friends. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:18, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• Do we have the date of the promo release?

I haven't been able to find one. It was undoubtedly pressed on a date, but since copies were shipped out individually, it may have been spread over some time, making an individual release date impossible to actually identify. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:46, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• That sentence is a touch confusing; I would suggest something in "On [date], Island released a promotional track for the recording label announcing that they were moving office. Titled "Change Of Address From 23 June 1969", the one-sided promo featured an instrumental jam by Blind Faith..."

Done Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:01, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• I think it wouldn't hurt to make it explicit that Blind Faith was the group's first album.

Whereabouts were you looking at? It was their only album (barring a live retrospective released decades later). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:01, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

I mean something like this; rv if you don't like it and we'll figure it out. It's more for flow than clarity, I guess.

• "back catalogues. both Atlantic Records (...) and for Clapton and Baker (...)." Something is missing there, and it's not just the capitalization...

Looks like I started removing / copyediting something, got distracted, and saved it half-done. Anyway, fixed. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:01, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• The record price could probably use a "present-day value" template

Done Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:01, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• "which the audience were unfamiliar with" "unfamiliar" seems a little weak; "were surprised by" or something would be more natural, I think

I've gone with "did not know well". Since the album had been only out a few weeks, diehard fans might have become familiar with the material but nowhere near as much as older Cream and Traffic stuff. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• "as had been the case in Cream" maybe this is just me, but it's unclear whether he had jammed with Cream, or if he hadn't.

I've reworded it. Cream were one of the first bands to stretch out a song to more than double its length, before groups like Led Zeppelin really started to take the piss. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• "their older, popular material" I'd suggest "the older, popular material", and to "the new Blind Faith material"

Tweaked Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• "Clapton was now exactly where he didn't want to be" Since this isn't literal, I find it a little colloquial.

Reworded. The basic gist is that Clapton just wanted to sit down and write songs with Winwood, and maybe put them on a solo or duo album, not touring round the US playing loud rock. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• Moving to the lead; I'm told it's an ENGVAR thing to refer to a band as "they" rather than "it". If that's the case, though, shouldn't it also be "the band were", rather than "was"?

It is, fixed. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• That girl on the album cover...in one place you say "pubescent", in another "prepubescent". It strikes me that you could say "Eleven-year-old" and avoid the problem, and also possibly be a little clearer

That works for me. I can't imagine that a cover like that would get released today, and I would describe it as "unfortunate" in retrospect. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• I'd suggest breaking paragraphs after "banned in the United States", and starting the next with "Blind Faith played"

Done Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• "They continued to tour Scandinavia" a little confusing, because they weren't on tour at that point, right? Also, Hyde Park isn't in Scandinavia, but it could be read that way. Why not simply "they toured"?

I see what you mean. I've reworded it a bit. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• "Delaney & Bonnie, and they split up" The "they" is ambiguous
• I despise one-sentence paragraphs, and would much prefer the last lead sentence be combined into the previous paragraph, but I won't insist on it.

See above. IIRC it was longer but I condensed it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• In the infobox, is "past members" the right parameter? It's not like they have present members...

I can't remember. RexxS is the fountain of knowledge for all things infoboxen, so I'll ask him. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Good to see you back, Ritchie! The only two relevant parameters available for the infobox are |current_members= and |past_members=. The documentation at Template:Infobox musical artist #past_members states: "If a group is inactive, all members should be listed here, and none in the "current_members" field." The article reflects current practice as documented. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 13:06, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• I would really like to see citations duplicated in the lower sections, due apologies for being rather anal about it.

Okay Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:10, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

I think I've addressed all the comments now, is there anything I've missed? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:46, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: The AllMusic ref for "awards", ref 14, seems to be pointing elsewhere now. It's a minor point, though, so I'll leave you to fix it at your leisure. Passing this now, nice work; I enjoyed reading it. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:38, 20 September 2019 (UTC)