Well All Right

"Well All Right" is the only track on the legendary Blind Faith album not written by a member of Blind Faith. Instead, it is credited to four unrelated people: Norman Petty, Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison, and Joe B. Mauldin. Buddy Holly was of course deceased 10 years before this album, and the other three names tie back to him - Allison and Mauldin being bandmates with Holly and Petty his producer, so it's no mystery that it's a Buddy Holly song. Why this particular song was selected for such an honor, however, is not known so much. The deluxe edition, along with doubling the songs and throwing in some jams, also has a song by Sam Myers. "Well All Right" is arguably excellently arranged here, and that's probably reason enough right there.

Blind Faith was a supergroup composed of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech. As is the rule for supergroups, it formed quickly, launched with a stellar amount of hype, and broke up almost before anyone could catch their breath. Typical of a supergroup, they leave in their wake a thrilling legend and an album that is a highly sought-after collector's item - especially the one with the famously controversial cover art. Get ready for a lot of name-dropping: After Steve Winwood had left Traffic but before joining Blind Faith, he was briefly considered by Crosby, Stills, and Nash to round out the fourth position. As quoted in Neil Young, Long May You Run - The Illustrated History, Graham Nash explained that Stephen Stills, as the only lead guitar, needed someone to play off: "He needed sparking by someone else who he could say, 'Well, f*** you, listen to this!' and drive each other to new heights." At Atlantic Records' legendary manager Ahmet Ertegun's suggestion, they went with Neil Young instead. The book, Seventies Rock - The Decade of Creative Chaos by Frank Moriarty, mentions one thing that doomed the group was that the studios, which were already making big bucks off Blind Faith, rushed them onto their promotional tour before they'd had time to gel. As such, fans and they themselves identified more as pieces of other groups than they did as their own group. Steve Winwood recalls: "When it came down to it, we failed because we couldn't resist requests for hits. Ginger did a drum solo and they thought it was Cream, so we chucked in an old Cream song, then I put in a Traffic song, and the identity of the band was killed stone dead."