I played it so many times that while I still like listening to the song…I dreaded playing it but it was hard to avoid. When you play in a bar band…you better know this song. Steve Winwood wrote this song and took the lead. Ginger’s appearance frightened me because I felt that all of a sudden we were a band, and with that would come the whole Stigwood machine and the hype that had surrounded Cream.” Somehow he had gotten wind of what we were doing and had tracked us down. We were only human.”Įric Clapton: Steve and I were at the cottage smoking joints and jamming when we were surprised by a knock at the door,” “It was Ginger. If you have 20,000 people out there, and you know you only have to play one song for them to be on their feet, you do it. “Then I put in a Traffic song, and the identity of the band was killed stone dead. Steve Winwood: “I had begun to realize what a problem Ginger was, and I saw why Eric had been against having him in the group.” “Ginger did a drum solo and they thought it was Cream, so we chucked in an old Cream song,” Winwood said. The band spent February to June 1969 in the studio jamming and recording.Ĭlapton didn’t want Baker in the band…he wanted to leave Cream behind but Winwood didn’t know the history until later on. Winwood suggested adding Ginger Baker to the lineup. They toured one time for the album and then soon broke up.Īfter Cream broke up in late 1968…Blind Faith evolved out of informal jamming at Eric Clapton’s home with Steve Winwood. Their one and only album, the self titled Blind Faith album, peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Charts, Canada, and the UK in 1969. What a talented band they were and we are lucky to get that album. I repeated it a few times for good measure. I’ve heard this song before but this time it really hit me. I was listening to Blind Faith’s self titled debut album last week while deep in work and this song was one caught my attention. James’ version was re-released in 1964, a year before Wolf recorded his “Killing Floor.”Īrtists to cover this song include Albert King, Jimi Hendrix and Otis Rush.īlind Faith…a supergroup with Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ric Grech, and Ginger Baker. Wolf wasn’t the first to use the phrase “killing floor” in a song the Mississippi blues musician Skip James recorded “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” in 1931.
Now, he’s down here on the killing floor. In this song, Howlin’ Wolf sings about how he should have left his woman a long time ago, imagining how much better he would have it if he went to Mexico when he had the chance. “It was amazing,”“and it was musically great, too, not just pyrotechnics.” It scared me, because he was clearly going to be a huge star, and just as we are finding our own speed, here was the real thing.” “I remember thinking that here was a force to be reckoned with. Led Zeppelin later used this song as the basis for The Lemon Song. So, the killing floor is a metaphor for depression, in Wolf’s case triggered by a woman who was so mad she was literally trying to kill him. One of them, a woman named Helen, was so fed up with his philandering that she got a shotgun filled with buckshot and fired at him from a second-floor window. He said that Wolf played the field, with several ladies in his stable. Hubert Sumlin played guitar on the original version. Wolf released his version in 1964 and it was written by him. According to Chas Chandler…Clapton just dropped his hands and was shocked. Jimi was ripping right through it at breakneck speed. Clapton was blown away by it because he never mastered the song. Jimi plugged into Jack Bruce’s amp and broke into Killing Floor. Jack Bruce later said that Jimi was a brave person to do that because Cream were all top notch musicans. No one in those days asked to do this because Clapton was “God” on guitar to many people…plus Cream as a unit were super talented. At a Cream gig he requested a chance to jam with the band. When Jimi Hendrix came to England he made a huge impression right away. This song comes with an interesting story between Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. I just posted a song by Howlin’ Wolf a week or so ago but I’ve been listening to him lately so here is another.