Cream was one of those short-lived bands that nevertheless left a big mark on rock and roll. The talent helped; the band had three members, bass player Jack Bruce, drummer Ginger Baker, and lead guitarist Eric Clapton. All three had already been successful in other bands. All three were known quantities. Cream, when it formed up in 1966, was one of rock & roll’s first “supergroups.”
Cream was only active for three years, from 1966 to 1968. They reformed briefly in 1993 and 2005, but they are still known for their work in the 60s, and the four albums that came out of that brief period: Fresh Cream, Disraeli Gears, Wheels of Fire, and the tellingly named Goodbye.
Their style was hard to pin down. Take a little psychedelic rock, popular in those days, throw in a little blues and a splash of hard rock, add in Eric Clapton’s almost liquid lead guitar work, and you had something that blew off a lot of doors, and was still doing so when I was in my teens, ten years later.
Here are some of my favorite tunes from this groundbreaking band.
I Feel Free (1966): This was the second song from Cream’s debut album, Fresh Cream. This and their initial release, Wrapping Paper, weren’t anything out of the ordinary, frankly. Nevertheless, this song and follow-up releases got a wide audience; many people remembered Eric Clapton from his time with the Yardbirds, and Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce had previously played with another well-known group, the Graham Bond Organization. This got Cream off to a good start for what ended up being a short stint.
Strange Brew (1967): This is another one from Disraeli Gears, which I still think was Cream’s best album. The lyrics for this one were written by writer and producer Felix Pappalardi, with the help of his wife Gail Collins, while Eric Clapton worked out the music and the vocals. It’s another tune that leans hard into the psychedelic rock genre, although I confess when I hear it, the first thing that comes to mind is the 1983 Rick Moranis/Dave Thomas film of the same name.Outside Woman Blues (1967): This is our final selection from Disraeli Gears, and it’s actually a cover of a song recorded by blues master Blind Joe Reynolds in 1929. For this one Cream left the psychedelic rock behind and went for a more straight-up blues sound. They did old Blind Joe credit, I think.White Room (1968): The lyrics for this song make it a bit of a downer, along with the rather foreboding sound. Pete Brown, who penned Sunshine of Your Love, also wrote this one. There’s an interesting and rather involved story behind this song; as Pete later explained it:We had been working all night and had gotten some stuff done. We had very little time to write for Cream, but we happened to have some spare time and Jack came up with the riff. He was playing a stand-up — he still had his stand-up bass, because he'd been a jazz musician. He was playing stand-up bass, and he said, “What about this then?” and played the famous riff. I looked out the window and wrote down, “It's getting near dawn.” That's how it happened. It's actually all true, really, all real stuff.
Born Under A Bad Sign (1968): For the third album, Wheels of Fire, Cream did another cover, of a song recorded only the previous year of 1967, by blues man and guitarist Albert King. Surprisingly, Cream played it pretty straight, bringing Clapton's considerable guitar skills to bear on this great old blues tune.What A Bringdown (1969): This one was the band’s final album, Goodbye, aptly named because not only was it Cream’s last album, but it was known that they would only do one more album while they were still on a tour just before the release of Wheels of Fire. This, then, was Cream’s swan song.Ginger Baker passed away in 2019, age 80. Jack Bruce likewise passed on in 2014, age 71. Eric Clapton, though, aged 81 as of this writing, is not only still kicking, but still touring.It was a meandering thing about a relationship that I was in and how I was at the time. It was a kind of watershed period really. It was a time before I stopped being a relative barman and became a songwriter, because I was a professional poet, you know. I was doing poetry readings and making a living from that. It wasn't a very good living, and then I got asked to work by Ginger and Jack with them and then started to make a kind of living.
And there was this kind of transitional period where I lived in this actual white room and was trying to come to terms with various things that were going on. It's a place where I stopped, I gave up all drugs and alcohol at that time in 1967 as a result of being in the white room, so it was a kind of watershed period. That song's like a kind of weird little movie: it changes perspectives all the time. That's why it's probably lasted - it's got a kind of mystery to it.
You can see the official websites of the original members, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, and Eric Clapton at these links.
Any Cream (or Clapton) stories to tell? Concerts or memories? The comments, again, are all yours.
