Cds You Should Own:Eric Clapton And Steve Winwood:LIVE FROM MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

Here's a long overdue reunion album between former Blind Faith members Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood that is certainly better than excellent. It's certainly more than worth the long wait. This new release is simply one of the very best Eric Clapton releases in some time. And Steve Winwood is fine musical form as well adding either guitar or keyboard work to the great performances here. And of course, Eric Clapton is always one of the great undisputed guitar supermen.

This two Cd package includes live versions of many of the songs from the album BLIND FAITH, as well Traffic, Derek And The Dominoes and Eric Clapton solo classics. And both Clapton and Winwood are both excellent here. In fact, the two seem to flawlessly merge their talents together, only proving that these two really needed far more works together than they originally ever issued. For me, the only two less than satisfying moment were with the attempts to do two Jimi Hendrix classics, "Little Wing" and "Voodoo Chile". As good as Clapton and Winwood are, nobody does Hendrix better than Hendrix in my view. However, all of the other Clapton and Winwood classics are flawlessly executed by comparison. The two classics penned by J.J. Cale, "After Midnight" and "Cocaine" both stand out as excellent here. Clapton always seems to improve on the minimalistic style of J.J. Cale with his greater electrical production on these two great songs. "Cocaine" is especially good here.

The two Cd set includes more than half the songs from the album BLIND FAITH as well. And all of these are great live versions of these classics seem great. Steve Winwood always adds great keyboard work as well his guitar talent, and is real double threat whenever he makes music.

It's difficult to say enough good things about this terrific album which should have really come out around 1970 or so. But better late than never is still good. This is one fantastic album here.

The album is available online at Cd Universe for just $19.75, which is a pretty good discount from the $24.98 list price. However, many other music retailers no doubt carry this great new May 19, 2009 release as well. If they don't carry this album, then they don't know good music.