Cold Wind Blues

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."