Cream 1966 L-R (Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker. Their sound was characterized by a hybrid of blues rock, hard rock and psychedelic rock, combining the psychedelia-themed lyrics, Eric Clapton's blues guitar playing, Jack Bruce's voice and prominent bass playing and Ginger Baker's jazz-influenced drumming. The group's third album, Wheels of Fire, was the world's first platinum-selling double album. Cream are widely regarded as being the world's first successful supergroup. In their career, they sold over 15 million albums worldwide. Cream's music included songs based on traditional blues such as "Crossroads" and "Spoonful", and modern blues such as "Born Under a Bad Sign", as well as more eccentric songs such as "Strange Brew", "Tales of Brave Ulysses" and "Toad". Cream's biggest hits were "I Feel Free" (UK, number 11), "Sunshine of Your Love" (US, number 5), "White Room" (US, number 6), "Crossroads" (US, number 28), and "Badge" (UK, number 18).
Cream (steppin-out)
Cream made a significant impact on the popular music of the time, and, along with Jimi Hendrix, and Terry Kath of Chicago, popularized the use of the wah-wah pedal. They provided a heavy yet technically proficient musical theme that foreshadowed and influenced the emergence of British bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and The Jeff Beck Group in the late 1960s. The band's live performances influenced progressive rock acts such as Rush jam bands such as The Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead, Phish and heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath.
Cream were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. They were included in both Rolling Stone and VH1's lists of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". They were also ranked number 16 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock".
By July 1966, Eric Clapton's career with The Yardbirds and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers had earned him a reputation as the premier blues guitarist in Britain. Clapton, however, found the environment of Mayall's band confining, and sought to expand his playing in a new band.
Cream (1968)
In 1966, Clapton met Ginger Baker, then the leader of the Graham Bond Organization, which at one point featured Jack Bruce on bass guitar, harmonica and piano. Baker felt stifled in the Graham Bond Organization and had grown tired of Graham Bond's drug addictions and bouts of mental instability. "I had always liked Ginger", explained Clapton. "Ginger had come to see me play with the Bluesbreakers. After the gig he drove me back to London in his Rover. I was very impressed with his car and driving. He was telling me that he wanted to start a band, and I had been thinking about it too." Each was impressed with the other's playing abilities, prompting Baker to ask Clapton to join his new, then-unnamed group. Clapton immediately agreed, on the condition that Baker hire Bruce as the group's bassist; according to Clapton, Baker was so surprised at the suggestion that he almost crashed the car.
Clapton had met Bruce when the bassist/vocalist briefly played with The Bluesbreakers in March 1966; the two also had worked together as part of a one-shot band called Powerhouse (which also included Steve Winwood and Paul Jones). Impressed with Bruce's vocals and technical prowess, Clapton wanted to work with him on an ongoing basis.
In contrast, while Bruce was in Bond's band, he and Baker had been notorious for their quarreling. Their volatile relationship included on-stage fights and the sabotage of one another's instruments. After Baker fired Bruce from the band, Bruce continued to arrive for gigs; ultimately, Bruce was driven away from the band after Baker threatened him at knifepoint.
Baker and Bruce put aside their differences for the good of Baker's new trio, which he envisioned as collaborative, with each of the members contributing to music and lyrics. The band was named "Cream", as Clapton, Bruce, and Baker were already considered the "cream of the crop" amongst blues and jazz musicians in the exploding British music scene. Before deciding upon "Cream", the band considered calling themselves "Sweet 'n' Sour Rock 'n' Roll". Of the trio, Clapton had the biggest reputation in England; however, he was all but unknown in the United States, having left The Yardbirds before "For Your Love" hit the American Top Ten.
Cream made its unofficial debut at the Twisted Wheel on 29 July 1966. Its official debut came two nights later at the Sixth Annual Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival. Being new and with few original songs to its credit, Cream performed blues reworking's that thrilled the large crowd and earned it a warm reception. In October the band also got a chance to jam with Jimi Hendrix, who had recently arrived in London. Hendrix was a fan of Clapton's music, and wanted a chance to play with him onstage. Hendrix was introduced to Cream through Chas Chandler, Hendrix's manager.
It was during the early organization that they decided Bruce would serve as the group's lead vocalist. While Clapton was shy about singing, he occasionally harmonized with Bruce and, in time, took lead vocals on some “Cream” tunes including "Four Until Late", "Strange Brew", "World of Pain", "Outside Woman Blues", "Anyone for Tennis", "Crossroads", and "Badge".
Fresh Cream:
Cream's debut album, Fresh Cream, was recorded and released in 1966. The album reached number 6 in the UK charts and number 39 in the United States. It was evenly split between self-penned originals and blues covers, including "Four Until Late", "Rollin' and Tumblin'", "Spoonful", "I'm So Glad" and "Cat's Squirrel". The rest of the songs were written by either Jack Bruce or Ginger Baker. ("I Feel Free", a UK hit single, was only included on the American edition of the LP.) The track "Toad" contained one of the earliest examples of a drum solo in rock music.
The early Cream bootlegs display a much tighter band showcasing more songs. All of the songs are reasonably short five-minute versions of "N.S.U.", "Sweet Wine" and "Toad". But a mere two months later, the set-list shortened, with the songs then much longer.
Cream – Disraeli Gears
Cream first visited the United States in March 1967 to play nine dates at the RKO Theater in New York. They returned to record Disraeli Gears in New York between 11 May and 15 May 1967. Cream's second album was released in November 1967 and reached the Top 5 in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Produced by Felix Pappalardi (who later co-founded the Cream-influenced quartet Mountain) and engineer Tom Dowd, it was recorded at Atlantic Studios in New York. Disraeli Gears is often considered to be the band's defining effort, successfully blending psychedelic British rock with American blues. Disraeli Gears not only features hits "Strange Brew" and "Tales of Brave Ulysses", but also "Sunshine of Your Love".
The album was originally slated for release in the summer of 1967, but the record label opted to scrap the planned cover and repackage it with a new psychedelic cover, designed by artist Martin Sharp, and the resulting changes delayed its release for several months. The album was remarkable for the time, with a psychedelic design patterned over a publicity photo of the trio.
Cream at the Psychedelic Supermarket in 1967
Although the album is considered one of Cream's finest efforts, it has never been well represented in Cream's live sets. Although they consistently played "Tales of Brave Ulysses" and "Sunshine of Your Love", several songs from Disraeli Gears were quickly dropped from performances in mid-1967, favoring longer jams instead of short pop songs. "We're Going Wrong" was the only additional song from the album the group performed live. In fact, at their 2005 reunion shows in London, Cream played only three songs from Disraeli Gears: "Outside Woman Blues", "We're Going Wrong," and "Sunshine of Your Love." ("Tales of Brave Ulysses" was included in the band's 2005 New York performances, however.)
In August 1967, Cream played their first headlining dates in America, playing at the Fillmore West in San Francisco for the first time. The concerts were a great success and proved very influential on both the band itself and the flourishing hippie scene surrounding them. Upon discovering a growing listening audience, the band began to stretch out on stage, incorporating more time in their repertoire, some songs reaching jams of twenty minutes. Long drawn-out jams in numbers like "Spoonful", "N.S.U.", "I'm So Glad", and "Sweet Wine" became live favourites, while songs like "Sunshine of Your Love", "Crossroads", and "Tales of Brave Ulysses" remained reasonably short.
Wheels of Fire:
:
Cream performing in 1968
In 1968 came Cream's third release, Wheels of Fire, which topped the American charts. Wheels of Fire studio recordings showcased Cream moving slightly away from the blues and more towards a semi-progressive rock style highlighted by odd time signatures and various orchestral instruments. However, the band did record Howlin' Wolf's "Sitting on Top of the World" and Albert King's "Born Under A Bad Sign". According to a BBC interview with Clapton, the record company, also handling Albert King, asked the band to cover "Born Under a Bad Sign", which became a popular track off the record. The opening song, "White Room", became a radio staple. Another song, "Politician", was written by the band while waiting to perform live at the BBC. The album's second disc featured three live recordings from the Winterland Ballroom and one from the Fillmore. Eric Clapton's second solo from "Crossroads" has made it to the top 20 in multiple "greatest guitar solo" lists.
After the completion of Wheels of Fire in mid-1968, the band members had had enough and wanted to go their separate ways. Baker stated in a 2006 interview with Music Mart magazine, "It just got to the point where Eric said to me: 'I've had enough of this,' and I said so have I. I couldn't stand it. The last year with Cream was just agony. It damaged my hearing permanently, and today I've still got a hearing problem because of the sheer volume throughout the last year of Cream. But it didn't start off like that. In 1966, it was great. It was really a wonderful experience musically, and it just went into the realms of stupidity." Bruce and Baker's combustible relationship proved even worse as a result of the strain put upon the band by non-stop touring, forcing Clapton to play the perpetual role of peacekeeper.
Clapton had also fallen under the spell of Bob Dylan's former backing group, now known as The Band, and their debut album, Music from Big Pink, which proved to be a welcome breath of fresh air in comparison to the incense and psychedelia that had informed Cream. Furthermore, he had read a scathing Cream review in Rolling Stone, a publication he had much admired, in which the reviewer, Jon Landau, called him a "master of the blues cliché." In the wake of that article, Clapton wanted to end Cream and pursue a different musical direction.
At the beginning of their Farewell Tour on 4 October 1968, in Oakland, nearly the entire set consisted of songs from Wheels of Fire: "White Room", "Politician", "Crossroads", "Spoonful", "Deserted Cities of the Heart", and "Passing the Time" taking the place of "Toad" for a drum solo. "Passing the Time" and "Deserted Cities" were quickly removed from the set-list and replaced by "Sitting on Top of the World" and "Toad".
Goodbye:
Cream were eventually persuaded to do one final album. That album, the appropriately titled Goodbye, was recorded in late 1968 and released in early 1969, after the band had broken up. It featured six songs: three live recordings dating from a concert at The Forum in Los Angeles, California, on 19 October, and three new studio recordings (including "Badge", which was written by Clapton and George Harrison, who also played rhythm guitar as "L'Angelo Misterioso"). "I'm So Glad" was included among the live tracks.
Eric Clapton (1967) Cream in the studio
Cream's "farewell tour" consisted of 22 shows at 19 venues in the United States between 4 October and 4 November 1968, and two final farewell concerts at the Royal Albert Hall on 26 November 1968. Initially another double album was planned, comprising live material from this tour plus new studio tracks, but a single album, Goodbye was released instead with three live tracks taken from their performance at The Forum in Los Angeles on 19 October 1968, and three studio tracks, one written by each of the band members. The final U.S. gig was at the Rhode Island Auditorium, 4 November 1968. The band arrived late and, due to local restrictions, they were able to perform only two songs, "Toad" and a 20+ minute version of "Spoonful". Bootlegs of inferior quality exist of the final US Concert.
Ginger Baker at the drumkit
The two Royal Albert Hall concerts were filmed for a BBC documentary and released on video (and later DVD) as Farewell Concert. Both shows were sold out and attracted more attention than any other Cream concert, but their performance was regarded by many as below standard. Baker himself said of the concerts: "It wasn’t a good gig ... Cream was better than that ... We knew it was all over. We knew we were just finishing it off, getting it over with." In an interview from Cream: Classic Artists, he added that the band was getting worse by the minute.
Cream's supporting acts were Taste (featuring a young Rory Gallagher) and the newly formed Yes, who received good reviews. Three performances early in Cream's farewell tour were opened by Deep Purple. Deep Purple had originally agreed to open the entire U.S. leg of the tour, but Cream's management removed them after only three shows, in spite of favorable reviews and good rapport between the bands.
Breakup:
Jack Bruce performing in 1972
From its creation, Cream were faced with some fundamental problems that would later lead to its dissolution in November 1968. The rivalry between Bruce and Baker created tensions in the band. Clapton also felt that the members of the band did not listen to each other enough. Equipment during these years had also improved; new Marshall amplifier stacks cranked out more power, and Jack Bruce pushed the volume levels higher, creating tension for Baker who would have trouble competing with roaring stacks. Clapton spoke of a concert during which he stopped playing and neither Baker nor Bruce noticed. Clapton has also commented that Cream's later gigs mainly consisted of its members showing off. Cream decided that they would break up in May 1968 during a tour of the US. Later, in July, an official announcement was made that the band would break up after a farewell tour of the United States and after playing two concerts in London. Cream finished their tour of the United States with a 4 November concert in Rhode Island and performed in the UK for the last time in London on 25 and 26 November. Bruce had three Marshall stacks on stage for the farewell shows but one acted only as a spare, and he only used one or two, depending on the song.
Eric Clapton performing in Barcelona after leaving Cream in 1974
2005 ‘Reunion Shows’ in London:
Cream’s ‘Reunion Show’ (2005)
Cream’s ‘Reunion Show’ (2005)
2005 Royal Albert Hall and Madison Square Garden ‘Reunion Show’ concerts
Cream reunited for a series of four shows, on 2, 3, 5, and 6 May 2005 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the venue of their final concerts in 1968, at Clapton's request. Although the three musicians chose not to speak publicly about the shows, Clapton would later state that he had become more "generous" in regard to his past, and that the physical health of Bruce and Baker was a major factor: Bruce had recently undergone a liver transplant for liver cancer, and had almost lost his life, while Baker had severe arthritis.
Tickets for all four shows sold out in under an hour. The performances were recorded for a live CD and DVD. Among those in attendance were Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Steve Winwood, Roger Waters, Brian May, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and also Mick Taylor and Bill Wyman. The reunion marked the first time the band had played "Badge" and "Pressed Rat and Warthog" live.
The Royal Albert Hall reunion proved a success on both a personal and financial level, inspiring the reformed band to bring their reunion to the United States. Cream chose to play at only one venue, Madison Square Garden in New York City, from 24–26 October 2005. The shows were marred by some controversy in regard to tickets: the show's promoters had made a deal with credit card company American Express to make tickets available to American Express customers only in an unprecedented week-long pre-sale. The shows were a financial success and received critical praise.
Fans of Cream hoped for a full-scale tour, but a statement from Cream's publicist days after the last performance put the nail in that particular coffin, when it was announced that Cream would not tour the United States. In an interview with Jack Bruce in the December 2005 issue of Bass Player magazine, Bruce hinted that he would like to see Cream continue in one way or another, possibly in the form of a new album, but that a tour was out of the question: "It would be quite a challenge to try to create music that would stand up to the classic songs. I've got a few ideas already—in fact, I wrote a song yesterday that I think would work. I just don't know if it will happen, because we all feel the band is so special we don't want to do it that often, if we go on. We've had offers you wouldn't believe—I didn't believe—for long world tours, and it's tempting. But none of us wants to accept because it would take away from the rarity and special nature of getting together. I'd like to do it every now and again and just play somewhere, but we could do an album amidst that, and I'm going to suggest it."
In an interview with BBC 6 Music in April 2010, Bruce confirmed that there would be no more Cream shows. He said: "Cream is over."
In February 2006, Cream received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of their contribution to, and influence upon, modern music. They left their mark on the youth of America from the 60’s that has endured to today. Thank you Eric, Jack and Ginger !!!
Until next, I hope all of you go to Amazon.com and pick-up one of Cream’s albums (CD’s). They are as follows;
- 1966 – Fresh Cream
- 1967 – Disraeli Gears
- 1968 – Wheels of Fire
- 1969 – Goodbye
”Keep on Rockin’ It Baby”
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MUSICIAN by Night
“And Don’t Forget to Help Keep The Blues Alive”
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