CREAM
Cream were a 1960’s British rock supergroup power trio consisting of bassist/singer Jack Bruce, drummer Ginger Baker, and guitarist/singer Eric Clapton. Their unique sound was characterised by a hybrid of blues rock, hard rock and psychedelic rock, combining psychedelia themes, Clapton’s blues guitar playing, Bruce’s powerful, well-trained voice and prominent bass playing, Baker’s pulsating, jazz-influenced drumming, and Pete Brown’s poetry-inspired lyrics. The group’s third album, Wheels of Fire, was the world’s first platinum-selling double album. In their career, they sold over 15 million albums worldwide. They provided a heavy yet technically proficient musical theme that foreshadowed and influenced the emergence of British bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Jeff Beck Group and Black Sabbath in the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s. (More from Wikipedia)
Chris Spedding went on to play with Cream bassist Jack Bruce (including his first solo album in 1969, Songs for a Tailor) and former Manfred Mann singer Mike D’Abo, plus a host of others, from Elton John to John Cale to Brian Eno to Harry Nilsson (including one of his best known albums, Nilsson Schmilsson). In 1973, Andy Fraser, the former bass player for Free (“All Right Now”) brought Spedding in as the lead guitarist for his short-lived band Sharks.
(November 2011)
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It is easy to argue that “they don’t make ’em like they used to”, and that would also be my main argument I suppose. For every Beatles and Cream and Beach Boys and U2 and White Stripes that made the big time, there are hundreds of bands that were every bit as good and were also well regarded enough to get a record deal – they just missed out on all of the stardom. (There are thousands more that didn’t even get signed, but without some recordings, I have nothing to talk about).
(January 2012)
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Cream drummer Ginger Baker had previously released a solo album in 1972 under the name Stratavarious; it is unrelated to the UARB Stratavarious.
(March 2012)
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In July 1967, the Klubs were given a recording test at EMI’s famed Abbey Road Studios, renamed for the Beatles’ penultimate album, Abbey Road in 1970. Staff producer Alan Paramor oversaw a marathon recording session, where the Klubs worked on covers of Cream’s “NSU”, and “Desdemona” by John’s Children (back when Marc Bolan, later of T. Rex was a bandmember), plus a new recording of their own song “Livin’ Today”. Paramor called the band “unrecordable” and sent them on their way.
(July 2013)
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At the time, Dora Wahl (who, like Casey Cosby, had also previously played the accordion) was the drummer for a 13-piece band called Brass Plus. Her 21st birthday present was tickets to a concert by Cream, where she got to sit directly above Ginger Baker’s drumset. Dora Wahl had become best friends with Carolyn Lee, the bass guitarist for Brass Plus, and recruited her for the new band. Lee was proficient at string bass and was just learning to play electric bass.
(October 2013)
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Vanilla Fudge had the good fortune to tour with Jimi Hendrix, was the opening act on several concerts on Cream’s last tour, and finally began touring with the brand-new Led Zeppelin opening for them. After hanging in there for several more albums (Sundazed Records has reissued four of them), the band broke up in early 1970.
(April 2014)
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Manfred Mann always had a chameleon quality and, unlike the top-flight British Invasion bands like the Beatles, the Who and the Rolling Stones, had frequent changes in their line-up. As I noted last month, Jack Bruce, later of Cream was a member in the mid-1960’s.
(June 2014)
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The liner notes for the Wonderwall Music album were a mess, and George Harrison was not originally credited with performing any of the music, leading many to think that he merely oversaw the album; actually, in addition to arranging the music, Harrison played electric and acoustic guitar, piano, and Mellotron. Other musicians on the album include Eric Clapton on electric guitar – credited as “Eddie Clayton” – Harrison’s bandmate Ringo Starr on drums, and Peter Tork of the Monkees who plays banjo (!). In 1969, George Harrison collaborated with Eric Clapton in writing perhaps my very favorite song by Cream, “Badge”.
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What Rev. Nicholas T. Freund found there was a revelation, and did he show up on a good night that first time: The performers were Cream, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother and the Holding Company. He recounts in the CD’s liner notes: “Eric Clapton’s guitar playing amazed me. . . . Janis Joplin . . . blew me away. The next day, the kids said: ‘Get your records out! Nick’s been to the Fillmore!’ I became interested in adapting the San Francisco sound to church music.”
As Nick Freund puts it: “I enjoy Bach and Gregorian chant. But I don’t see it as an expression of today. It’s like a beautiful old painting in a museum – you admire and appreciate it, but it has no relevance to ‘Now’. We should express our worship of God in terms we use today.” Also: “I could spend years writing a classical concert, and nobody would ever hear it.”
(September 2014)
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The other George Harrison songs on The Beatles are all standout cuts on the album and illustrate the variety that George has brought in his songwriting all along: “Piggies”, “Long, Long, Long”, and “Savoy Truffle”.
Many rock critics have noted that the sheer length of All Things Must Pass – the triple LP (including the bonus disk Apple Jam) that George Harrison released after the Beatles broke up – showed the volume of excellent Harrison compositions that never made it onto any Beatles albums. Eric Clapton was one of the key musicians in those recording sessions; the two also co-wrote one of my favorite songs by Cream, “Badge".
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Writing for Allmusic, Dean McFarlane says of the album: “From the opening cut, it is fairly apparent why the original album is so sought after – Magic Lantern is as fine a display of American psychedelia as late-’60s albums by It’s a Beautiful Day and Jefferson Airplane. This will appeal to fans of the fuzzed-out guitar antics of Cream and Blue Cheer.” There is also a long article in the “Biography” section in Allmusic (this time by Stanton Swihart) about Haymarket Square. The band name is taken from a place in Chicago where a famous labor riot took place in 1886.
Haymarket Square gained a solid reputation in the local music scene right away; one of their gigs was at the Playboy Mansion. Allmusic says that they began “sharing stages with important international groups like the Yardbirds and Cream, as well as local favorites H. P. Lovecraft, Saturday’s Children, and the Shadows of Knight”. Before long, the bandmembers began writing songs similar to those of their idols Jefferson Airplane, particularly Gloria Lambert (who was the sole author of 4 of the 6 songs).
(June 2015)
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Some of the songs on Wild Love are familiar, such as the Skip James song “I’m So Glad” that Cream covered so memorably; and the Bo Diddley classic “I’m a Man” – both versions by the Stooges are terrific and unconventional, almost needless to say. As I have said before, I have never heard a performance of “I’m a Man” that I didn’t love.
(December 2017)
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I certainly don’t know as much going into a monthly post as I probably let on, and despite its thousands, my record collection is not comprehensive. For instance, my post awhile back about the origins of Cream and the many bands that arose in the wake of their break-up germinated from some writings by the music columnist Ricky Flake in our local paper, the Sun Herald. At the time, I had precisely one album by Cream, Disraeli Gears (I still don’t have Goodbye) and only the first Mountain album, Climbing!.
(Year 5 Review)
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For most of this time, I was somehow able to put up long posts about rock music on a monthly basis while I was still working full-time. I remember thinking often over the years that I really should have waited until I retired to try to do something like this. Now that I actually have retired, I really don’t know how I put all of that information together, and I doubt that I could come up with many of those posts now. As an example, my detailed post on the Cream family tree (May 2014) was almost 7,800 words; the section on Eric Clapton alone totaled 3,500 words. I still haven’t counted up the words in all of the posts, but the grand total is probably on the order of a half million words.
(Year 10 Review)
