Thursday, December 3, 2009

Colwell-Winfield Blues Band - Cold Wind Blues 1968


Colwell-Winfield Blues Band - Cold Wind Blues 1968

Blues

Here is a band that somehow slipped through fame and fortune. Everyone is a master musician and most of them graduated from "Berklee School of Music", as it was called back in those days. Those were the days when Berklee was a jazz school. Today it caters to pop musicans. They each played on "the road" with countless rhythm and blues, soul, and blues bands, so they not only had the musical education from the greatest jazz school in the world, but they also had years of musical "front line experience" playing in the trenches. The bottom line is that these boys could "PLAY!"

This band is the only band I ever saw in those days that constantly got standing ovations every time they played. That's pretty rare for a blues band. And yes, I saw them several times along with all the other bands from those days.

This is raw blues, not the "souped up" fancy Cream or Allman Brothers powerful kind. (I love Cream and it is is my favorite band). But on the other hand it's not simple like Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf. This band might fit in more with the Paul Butterfield and Michael Bloomfield crowd, although of course, they have their own unique sound.
By Donald C. Renfro.
**
One of the forgotten classics of the late-'60s American blues scene, the Colwell-Winfield Blues Band once opened for Led Zeppelin, and that would appear to be their greatest claim to fame -- until you play the group's debut album, a hulking slab of blistered fusion that packs some of the most intriguing arrangements of the age. It features some of the most surreal imagery as well: "Paper bags hold degenerate dreams, fill my world with unnatural scenes," bellows the aptly named Moose Sorrento during the opening "Free Will Fantasy." And so the Colwell-Winfield Blues Band get on with proving what a lot of people had been saying all year long -- that the best jazz-rock-blues band of 1968 was only getting better. The finest moments are those when the band really stretches out -- seven minutes apiece for the 12-bar "Got a Mind" and the showcase "Govinda," and eight for "Dead End Street," a slowly percolating rhythm that is only gently layered by the rest of the band. The briefer cuts burn fiercely, though, while the Akarma reissue in 2001 appends a bonus track that is actually one of the finest things in sight, the frantic semi-psychedelic experimentation of "Wind Is Singing."
By Dave Thompson.
**
Bill Colwell- (Guitar),
Chuck Purro- (Drums),
Jack Shroer- (Saxophone),
Moose Sorrento- (Vocals),
Collin Tilton- (Wind),
Michael Winfield- (Bass)
**
A1. Free Will Fantasy 4:18  
A2. Mind To Give Up Living (Got A Mind) 6:49
A3. Dead End Street 7:54

B1. Cold Wind Blues 4:45 
B2. Whole Lot Of Lovin' 3:33 
B3. Going Down Slow 4:40
B4. Govinda 6:00
**
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