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)
Returning to the topic of making new rock bands out of old ones, the English band Cream was a juggernaut that, first, burned out too fast; also, was the first and probably the greatest power trio in rock music; third, marked a new contingent of British hitmakers beyond the original British Invasion; and lastly, spawned numerous other bands and artists. One of those later bands, Blind Faith is the first rock band that I heard described as a “super-group”, that is, a band composed of standout musicians from previous important bands. However, to some extent at least, that was true of Cream itself, as the three bandmembers had already established themselves in the British R&B scene, including some collaborations that predated this legendary band.
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Eric Clapton was a member of both Cream and Blind Faith, and he has been in several other rock bands as well over the years, mostly though not entirely before he began his solo career in 1970. Eric Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: as a solo artist, as a member of the Yardbirds, and as a member of Cream.
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Jack Bruce was the original bass guitarist for Blues Incorporated, which was founded by Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner as the first amplified R&B band in Britain; other bandmembers in the early line-up include Charlie Watts, the drummer for the Rolling Stones, and vocalist Long John Baldry. The band was never intended to have a fixed line-up and included numerous fine musicians over its life, among them the future drummer for Cream, Ginger Baker. Jack Bruce was also briefly a member of Manfred Mann.
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To some extent at least, the formation of Cream grew out of an English all-star band called the Powerhouse that was assembled solely to provide music for a 1966 compilation album called What’s Shakin’ that announced the arrival of Elektra Records in Great Britain. Bandmembers included Eric Clapton (guitar); Jack Bruce (bass guitar) and Paul Jones (harmonica) from Manfred Mann; Stevie Winwood (lead vocals) and Pete York (drums) from the Spencer Davis Group; and Ben Palmer (piano), who had briefly been in a band with Clapton in 1965. Ginger Baker was originally slated to be the drummer for the group but was unavailable. This remarkable line-up included two members of Cream (and almost all three), plus two future members of Blind Faith (Clapton and Winwood). What’s more, Cream later recorded two of the only three songs ever made by this assemblage, Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” and an instrumental called “Steppin’ Out” that Eric Clapton had previously performed while in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. The artist on these two songs was listed as Eric Clapton & the Powerhouse. The third song, “I Want to Know” was credited to MacLeod, an evident reference to Paul Jones’ wife Sheila MacLeod; Ten Years After included “I Want to Know” on their first album, Ten Years After that was released in late 1967.
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In 1966, Eric Clapton met Ginger Baker; both men felt a little stifled in their band environment – John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and the Graham Bond Organisation, respectively – and Baker asked Clapton to join a band that he was putting together. Clapton agreed, but only if Jack Bruce was also included as the lead vocalist and bass guitarist; Clapton later said that Baker almost wrecked his car when he heard that. Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were notorious for their volatility while in the Graham Bond Organisation together, including on-stage fights and sabotage of the other’s instruments. The two put aside their differences for the sake of the new band, but this probably sowed the seeds for Cream’s dissolution in barely two years’ time.
The band’s debut album, the fittingly titled Fresh Cream featured a mixture of traditional blues songs as well as band originals. For a band that became renowned for their instrumental solos, the two opening tracks (both written or co-written by Jack Bruce), “I Feel Free” and “N.S.U.” were less than 3 minutes each. “I Feel Free” was co-written with Pete Brown, who became an important songwriting partner with the Cream bandmembers; he and Bruce were the songwriters on their hit “White Room” plus four songs on Disraeli Gears that included “Sunshine of Your Love” (which was co-written with Eric Clapton). The blues songs include Skip James’ “I’m So Glad”, “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” (originally written and recorded by Hambone Willie Newbern, with the first famous recording being by Muddy Waters), and the stomping “Spoonful” (written by Willie Dixon).
As was often true throughout the British Invasion, the British and American releases of Fresh Cream were different. “I Feel Free” is not on the U.K. version even though it was the band’s first single in Britain, while “Spoonful” is omitted from the original American release – happily it is included on my copy, since it is one of my favorite Cream tracks. “Spoonful” is also a standout, extended live track on Wheels of Fire.
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Disraeli Gears marked the arrival of the man who became essentially a fourth bandmember in Cream, Felix Pappalardi. He was the record producer on this album and the next two, and Pappalardi plays many different instruments (often uncredited), particularly on Wheels of Fire. With his wife Gail Collins Pappalardi, Felix Pappalardi also wrote two songs on this album, “Strange Brew” and “World of Pain”.
With this album, Cream introduced psychedelia into their mixture of styles and influences. Besides their hit “Sunshine of Your Love”, outstanding songs on the album include “Strange Brew”, “Tales of Brave Ulysses” and “Swalbr” – the curious title of the last song comes from the initials for “She Walks Like A Bearded Rainbow” (or “She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow”).
Writing for Allmusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine calls Disraeli Gears “a very British album”, and never more so than on the closing track “Mother’s Lament”, showing that Cream was also attracted to traditional songs other than the blues. For a change, no attempt was made to market a different album in the U.S. from the one that was released in England, and Americans responded by driving the album to #4 on the Billboard album charts, even better than the #5 showing that Disraeli Gears reached in the U.K.
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The first “posthumous” album by Cream, Live Cream (later called Live Cream, Vol. 1) had just 5 tracks, mostly drawn from the songs on Fresh Cream; another live album was a natural due to the critical and public acclaim for Wheels of Fire (the first double-album to go platinum), where one of the two albums was recorded live. Bruce Eder calls Live Cream “their most consistently brilliant album for sheer musicianship”.
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Cream officially broke up in July 1968, though the band performed in England as late as November. Cream’s final album, Goodbye was drawn primarily from concert recordings at The Forum in Los Angeles on October 19, 1968, but it also included a studio version of one of Cream’s finest performances, “Badge” (co-written by Eric Clapton and George Harrison).
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Blind Faith formed shortly after the break-up of Cream. Eric Clapton had been trying to bring Stevie Winwood into Cream to act as a sort of buffer between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker – actually that probably wouldn’t have worked out, since I heard that Baker and Winwood didn’t get along in Blind Faith. As with the formation of Cream itself, Eric Clapton and Stevie Winwood were frustrated with their present bands. Cream had better amplifiers toward the end, and Jack Bruce was pushing the volume up during concerts, so Ginger Baker was having difficulty getting his drums heard above the roar. Eric Clapton said that he stopped playing during a Cream concert once, and neither Jack Bruce nor Ginger Baker even noticed; he also characterized later Cream performances as the bandmembers showing off.
When Traffic broke up temporarily in 1969, Stevie Winwood began jamming with Eric Clapton; they had played together previously in the Powerhouse. Ginger Baker sat in one time in 1969, and he was a natural as the band’s drummer. Clapton was reluctant to team up with Baker again so soon after Cream broke up, but Winwood convinced him that they would never find a more talented drummer than Baker. The three invited Rick Grech (also known as Ric Grech) to join the group; he was the bass guitarist in Family and left that band mid-tour to join Blind Faith.
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There was a great deal of buzz associated with the Blind Faith album (mainly due to its Cream connections, at least in the U.S.), but there is every indication that it was rushed to the market.
Despite the fact that one-half of Blind Faith was previously two-thirds of Cream, their album seemed dominated instead by Stevie Winwood; besides handling lead vocalist duties, Winwood wrote half of the songs, with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker each contributing one.
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Felix Pappalardi, who produced Cream’s second through fourth albums and became almost a fourth member of the band, is actually from New York.
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The other member of Cream, Jack Bruce released his debut solo album, Songs for a Tailor in the U.K. at almost the same moment that Mountain was performing one of the songs on the album, “Theme for an Imaginary Western” at Woodstock. All of the songs on the album had music by Jack Bruce and lyrics by Pete Brown; they had co-written several of the Cream songs previously.
* * *
Jack Bruce has rarely performed with a band since Cream; but after Mountain broke up in 1969 when Felix Pappalardi left the group, he hooked up with two of the members of the group, Leslie West and Corky Laing and formed a power trio called West, Bruce and Laing. The group released two studio albums, Why Dontcha and Whatever Turns You On; no hits emerged from the albums, and by the time their live album, Live ’n’ Kickin’ came out in 1974, the group had already broken up.
(May 2014)
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Items: Cream
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Eric Clapton was a member of both Cream and Blind Faith, and he has been in several other rock bands as well over the years, mostly though not entirely before he began his solo career in 1970. Eric Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: as a solo artist, as a member of the Yardbirds, and as a member of Cream.
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Jack Bruce was the original bass guitarist for Blues Incorporated, which was founded by Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner as the first amplified R&B band in Britain; other bandmembers in the early line-up include Charlie Watts, the drummer for the Rolling Stones, and vocalist Long John Baldry. The band was never intended to have a fixed line-up and included numerous fine musicians over its life, among them the future drummer for Cream, Ginger Baker. Jack Bruce was also briefly a member of Manfred Mann.
* * *
To some extent at least, the formation of Cream grew out of an English all-star band called the Powerhouse that was assembled solely to provide music for a 1966 compilation album called What’s Shakin’ that announced the arrival of Elektra Records in Great Britain. Bandmembers included Eric Clapton (guitar); Jack Bruce (bass guitar) and Paul Jones (harmonica) from Manfred Mann; Stevie Winwood (lead vocals) and Pete York (drums) from the Spencer Davis Group; and Ben Palmer (piano), who had briefly been in a band with Clapton in 1965. Ginger Baker was originally slated to be the drummer for the group but was unavailable. This remarkable line-up included two members of Cream (and almost all three), plus two future members of Blind Faith (Clapton and Winwood). What’s more, Cream later recorded two of the only three songs ever made by this assemblage, Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” and an instrumental called “Steppin’ Out” that Eric Clapton had previously performed while in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. The artist on these two songs was listed as Eric Clapton & the Powerhouse. The third song, “I Want to Know” was credited to MacLeod, an evident reference to Paul Jones’ wife Sheila MacLeod; Ten Years After included “I Want to Know” on their first album, Ten Years After that was released in late 1967.
* * *
In 1966, Eric Clapton met Ginger Baker; both men felt a little stifled in their band environment – John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and the Graham Bond Organisation, respectively – and Baker asked Clapton to join a band that he was putting together. Clapton agreed, but only if Jack Bruce was also included as the lead vocalist and bass guitarist; Clapton later said that Baker almost wrecked his car when he heard that. Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were notorious for their volatility while in the Graham Bond Organisation together, including on-stage fights and sabotage of the other’s instruments. The two put aside their differences for the sake of the new band, but this probably sowed the seeds for Cream’s dissolution in barely two years’ time.
The band’s debut album, the fittingly titled Fresh Cream featured a mixture of traditional blues songs as well as band originals. For a band that became renowned for their instrumental solos, the two opening tracks (both written or co-written by Jack Bruce), “I Feel Free” and “N.S.U.” were less than 3 minutes each. “I Feel Free” was co-written with Pete Brown, who became an important songwriting partner with the Cream bandmembers; he and Bruce were the songwriters on their hit “White Room” plus four songs on Disraeli Gears that included “Sunshine of Your Love” (which was co-written with Eric Clapton). The blues songs include Skip James’ “I’m So Glad”, “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” (originally written and recorded by Hambone Willie Newbern, with the first famous recording being by Muddy Waters), and the stomping “Spoonful” (written by Willie Dixon).
As was often true throughout the British Invasion, the British and American releases of Fresh Cream were different. “I Feel Free” is not on the U.K. version even though it was the band’s first single in Britain, while “Spoonful” is omitted from the original American release – happily it is included on my copy, since it is one of my favorite Cream tracks. “Spoonful” is also a standout, extended live track on Wheels of Fire.
* * *
Disraeli Gears marked the arrival of the man who became essentially a fourth bandmember in Cream, Felix Pappalardi. He was the record producer on this album and the next two, and Pappalardi plays many different instruments (often uncredited), particularly on Wheels of Fire. With his wife Gail Collins Pappalardi, Felix Pappalardi also wrote two songs on this album, “Strange Brew” and “World of Pain”.
With this album, Cream introduced psychedelia into their mixture of styles and influences. Besides their hit “Sunshine of Your Love”, outstanding songs on the album include “Strange Brew”, “Tales of Brave Ulysses” and “Swalbr” – the curious title of the last song comes from the initials for “She Walks Like A Bearded Rainbow” (or “She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow”).
Writing for Allmusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine calls Disraeli Gears “a very British album”, and never more so than on the closing track “Mother’s Lament”, showing that Cream was also attracted to traditional songs other than the blues. For a change, no attempt was made to market a different album in the U.S. from the one that was released in England, and Americans responded by driving the album to #4 on the Billboard album charts, even better than the #5 showing that Disraeli Gears reached in the U.K.
* * *
The first “posthumous” album by Cream, Live Cream (later called Live Cream, Vol. 1) had just 5 tracks, mostly drawn from the songs on Fresh Cream; another live album was a natural due to the critical and public acclaim for Wheels of Fire (the first double-album to go platinum), where one of the two albums was recorded live. Bruce Eder calls Live Cream “their most consistently brilliant album for sheer musicianship”.
* * *
Cream officially broke up in July 1968, though the band performed in England as late as November. Cream’s final album, Goodbye was drawn primarily from concert recordings at The Forum in Los Angeles on October 19, 1968, but it also included a studio version of one of Cream’s finest performances, “Badge” (co-written by Eric Clapton and George Harrison).
* * *
Blind Faith formed shortly after the break-up of Cream. Eric Clapton had been trying to bring Stevie Winwood into Cream to act as a sort of buffer between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker – actually that probably wouldn’t have worked out, since I heard that Baker and Winwood didn’t get along in Blind Faith. As with the formation of Cream itself, Eric Clapton and Stevie Winwood were frustrated with their present bands. Cream had better amplifiers toward the end, and Jack Bruce was pushing the volume up during concerts, so Ginger Baker was having difficulty getting his drums heard above the roar. Eric Clapton said that he stopped playing during a Cream concert once, and neither Jack Bruce nor Ginger Baker even noticed; he also characterized later Cream performances as the bandmembers showing off.
When Traffic broke up temporarily in 1969, Stevie Winwood began jamming with Eric Clapton; they had played together previously in the Powerhouse. Ginger Baker sat in one time in 1969, and he was a natural as the band’s drummer. Clapton was reluctant to team up with Baker again so soon after Cream broke up, but Winwood convinced him that they would never find a more talented drummer than Baker. The three invited Rick Grech (also known as Ric Grech) to join the group; he was the bass guitarist in Family and left that band mid-tour to join Blind Faith.
* * *
There was a great deal of buzz associated with the Blind Faith album (mainly due to its Cream connections, at least in the U.S.), but there is every indication that it was rushed to the market.
Despite the fact that one-half of Blind Faith was previously two-thirds of Cream, their album seemed dominated instead by Stevie Winwood; besides handling lead vocalist duties, Winwood wrote half of the songs, with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker each contributing one.
* * *
Felix Pappalardi, who produced Cream’s second through fourth albums and became almost a fourth member of the band, is actually from New York.
* * *
The other member of Cream, Jack Bruce released his debut solo album, Songs for a Tailor in the U.K. at almost the same moment that Mountain was performing one of the songs on the album, “Theme for an Imaginary Western” at Woodstock. All of the songs on the album had music by Jack Bruce and lyrics by Pete Brown; they had co-written several of the Cream songs previously.
* * *
Jack Bruce has rarely performed with a band since Cream; but after Mountain broke up in 1969 when Felix Pappalardi left the group, he hooked up with two of the members of the group, Leslie West and Corky Laing and formed a power trio called West, Bruce and Laing. The group released two studio albums, Why Dontcha and Whatever Turns You On; no hits emerged from the albums, and by the time their live album, Live ’n’ Kickin’ came out in 1974, the group had already broken up.
(May 2014)
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Items: Cream
