ENSAYOS Y MAS ENSAYOS Y OTROS: The Cream

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The Cream

Cream (band)

Cream
Cream, 1967. L-R: Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce, and Eric Clapton






Former members
Eric Clapton Jack Bruce Ginger Baker

Cream were a 1960s British blues-rock band and supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer/vocalist Ginger Baker. Their sound was characterised by a hybrid of blues, hard rock and psychedelic rock,^[1] combining Eric Clapton's blues guitar playing with the voice and basslines of Jack Bruce and the jazz-influenced drumming of Baker. Wheels of Fire was the world's first platinum-selling double album.^[2][3] Cream is widely regarded as being the world's first notable and functioning supergroup.^[4][5][6]

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, #11),^[3] "Sunshine of Your Love" (US, #5),^[7] "White Room" (US, #6),^[7] "Crossroads" (US, #28),^[7] and "Badge" (UK, #18).^[8]

Cream, together with The Jimi Hendrix Experience, made a significant impact upon the popular music of the time, and along with Jimi Hendrix popularised 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,^[9] jam bands such as The Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead, Phish and heavy metal bands such as Black Sabbath.^[10]

Cream was ranked #16 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock and Rolling Stone named them the sixty-sixth greatest artist of all time.^[11]

[edit] Formation

By July 1966, Eric Clapton's career with The Yardbirds and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers had earned him a reputation as the premier blues guitarist in Britain.^[1] Clapton's virtuosity and raw power with the guitar inspired one fan to spray paint the words "Eric Clapton is God" on the wall of an Islington underground station.^[12] Clapton, however, found the environment of Mayall's band confining, and sought to expand his playing in a new band.

In 1966, Clapton met Baker, then the leader of the Graham Bond Organisation, which at one point featured Bruce on bass guitar, harmonica and piano. Baker, too, felt stifled in the GBO and had grown tired of Graham Bond's drug addictions and bouts of mental instability. "I had always liked Ginger", explained Eric 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."^[13] Each was impressed with the other's playing abilities, prompting Baker to ask Eric Clapton to join his new, then-unnamed group. Clapton immediately agreed, on the condition that Baker hire Bruce as the group's bassist;^[3] according to Clapton, Baker was so surprised at the suggestion that he almost crashed the car.^[14]

Clapton had met Bruce when the bassist/vocalist briefly played with the Bluesbreakers in March 1966;^[3] 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.

What Clapton did not know was that while Bruce was in Bond's band, he and Baker had been notorious for their quarrelling.^[15] While both were excellent jazz musicians and respected each other's skills, the confines of the GBO had proved too small for their egos. Their volatile relationship included on-stage fights and the sabotage of one another's instruments.^[15] 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.

Nevertheless, Baker and Bruce were able to 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.^[1]

Cream made its unofficial debut at the Twisted Wheel on 29 July 1966.^[3][16] Its official debut came two nights later at the Sixth Annual Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival.^[3][16] Being new and with few original songs to its credit, Cream performed spirited blues reworkings 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.^[3] Hendrix was introduced to Cream through Chas Chandler, the bassist of The Animals, who was Hendrix's manager.^[3]

It was during the early organisation that they decided Bruce would serve as the group's lead vocalist. While Clapton was shy about singing,^[17] he occasionally harmonised with Bruce and, in time, took lead vocals on some notable Cream tunes including "Four Until Late",^[18] "Strange Brew",^[19] "Crossroads",^[20] and "Badge".^[21]

[edit] Fresh Cream

Cream's debut album, Fresh Cream, was recorded and released in 1966. The album reached #6 in the UK charts and #39 in the United States.^[22] It mainly consisted of blues covers, including "Four Until Late", "Rollin' and Tumblin'" (written by Muddy Waters), "Spoonful" (written by Willie Dixon and recorded by Howlin' Wolf), "I'm So Glad" (written by Skip James) and "Cat's Squirrel".^[23] The rest of the album featured songs written (or co-written) by Jack Bruce, most notably "I Feel Free" (which was a UK hit single,^[3] but only included on the American edition of the LP), and two by Ginger Baker (one of which, "Toad", contained one of the earliest examples of a drum solo in rock music). Ginger Baker also collaborated with Jack Bruce's then-wife Janet Godfrey to write "Sweet Wine."

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 setlist shortened, with the songs then much longer.

[edit] Disraeli Gears

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"Sunshine of Your Love"

20 second sample of the song "Sunshine of Your Love"

Problems listening to this file? See media help.

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.^[24] Cream's second album was released in November 1967 and reached the Top 5 in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.^[25] 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. It was also the first Cream album to consist primarily of original songs, with only three of the eleven tracks written by others outside the band. Disraeli Gears not only features hits "Strange Brew" and "Tales of Brave Ulysses", but also "Sunshine of Your Love".

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", a setlist consisting of several songs from Disraeli Gears was quickly dropped from the set in mid-1967, favouring longer jams instead of short pop songs. "We're Going Wrong" was the only additional song from the album which saw some occasional play time in their live sets. In fact, at their 2005 reunion shows in London, Cream only played 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 set list, 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 hippy scene surrounding them. Faced with a new listening audience, it was during this time that Cream started to stretch out on stage, incorporating more jamming time in their repertoire, some songs reaching 20 minutes. Long drawn-out jams in numbers like "Spoonful", "N.S.U." and "Sweet Wine" became live favorites while songs like "Sunshine of Your Love", "Crossroads", and "Tales of Brave Ulysses" remained reasonably short.

[edit] Wheels of Fire

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.^[13] 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.^[26][27][28] Ginger Baker's "Toad" is now widely-regarded as one of the greatest live drum solos in rock history.^[29]

After the completion of Wheels of Fire in mid-1968, the band members had had enough and wanted to go their separate ways. As Baker would state 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." Also, 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,^[3] 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, where the reviewer, Jon Landau, called him a "master of the blues cliché."^[3] It was in the wake of that article that 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 place of "Toad" for a drum solo. "Passing the Time" and "Deserted Cities" were quickly removed from the setlist and replaced by "Sitting on Top of the World" and "Toad".

[edit] 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 (the most notable, "Badge", was written by Clapton and George Harrison, who also played rhythm guitar as "L'Angelo Misterioso"). "I'm So Glad", which first appeared as a studio recording on Fresh Cream, appeared as a live track on Goodbye. It was the only song to appear on both Cream's first and last albums.

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 gig at The Forum on 19 October captured some of the most intense live performances recorded which truly lives up to the name, The Cream. The final United States gig was at the Rhode Island Auditorium, 4 November 1968. The band arrived late and due to local restrictions they were only able to perform two songs, "Spoonful" and "Toad".

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." Cream's live performances were already declining. In an interview from Cream: Classic Artists, Ginger Baker himself agreed that the band was getting worse by the minute.^[30]

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. Purple had originally agreed to open the entire U.S. leg of the tour, but Cream's management removed Purple after only three shows, in spite of favourable reviews and good rapport between the bands.^[31]

[edit] Breakup

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. Clapton once told a story that when Cream was playing in a concert, he stopped playing and neither Baker nor Bruce noticed.^[15] Clapton has also commented that Cream's later gigs mainly consisted of its members showing off.^[32] Cream decided that they would break up in May 1968 during a tour of the US.^[33] 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 .^[33]

[edit] Post-Cream

Blind Faith was formed immediately after the demise of Cream, following an attempt by Clapton to recruit Steve Winwood into the band in the hope that he would help act as a buffer between Bruce and Baker. Inspired by more song-based acts Clapton went on to perform much different, less improvisational material with Delaney & Bonnie, Derek and the Dominos and in his own long and varied solo career.

Bruce began a varied and successful solo career with the 1969 release of Songs for a Tailor, while Baker formed a jazz-fusion ensemble out of the ashes of Blind Faith called Ginger Baker's Air Force, which featured Winwood, Blind Faith bassist Rick Grech, Graham Bond on sax, and guitarist Denny Laine of the Moody Blues and (later) Wings.

[edit] Reunions

[edit] Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

In 1993, Cream were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and reformed to perform at the induction ceremony.^[34] Initially, the trio were wary about performing, until encouraging words from Robbie Robertson inspired them to try.^{[citation needed]} The set consisted of "Sunshine of Your Love", "Crossroads", and "Born Under a Bad Sign", a song they had not previously played live.^{[citation needed]} Clapton mentioned in his acceptance speech that their rehearsal the day before the ceremony had marked the first time they had played together in 25 years.^[3] This performance spurred rumours of a reunion tour.^{[citation needed]} Bruce and Baker said in later interviews that they were, indeed, interested in touring as Cream.^{[citation needed]} A formal reunion did not take place immediately, as Clapton, Bruce and Baker continued to pursue solo projects, although the latter two worked together again in the mid-1990s as two-thirds of a power trio BBM with Irish blues-rock guitarist Gary Moore.

[edit] 2005 Royal Albert Hall and Madison Square Garden 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:^{[citation needed]} 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:^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]} The reunion marked the first time the band had played "Badge" and "Pressed Rat and Warthog" live.^{[citation needed]}

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:^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

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."

[edit] 2006-present

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In February 2006, Cream received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of their contribution to, and influence upon, modern music. That same month, a "Classic Albums" DVD was released detailing the story behind the creation and recording of Disraeli Gears. On the day prior to the Grammy ceremony, Bruce made a public statement that more one-off performances of Cream had been planned: multiple dates in a few cities, similar to the Royal Albert Hall and Madison Square Garden shows. However, this story was rebutted by both Clapton and Baker, first by Clapton in a Times article from April 2006. The article stated that when asked about Cream, Clapton said: "No. Not for me. We did it and it was fun. But life is too short I've got lots of other things I would rather do, including staying at home with my kids. The thing about that band, he says, was that it was all to do with its limits....it was an experiment". In an interview in the UK magazine Music Mart, about the release of a DVD about the Blind Faith concert in Hyde Park 1969, Baker commented about his unwillingness to continue the Cream reunion. These comments were far more specific and explosive than Clapton's, as they were centred around his relationship with Jack Bruce. Ginger said, "When he's Dr. Jekyll, he's fine... It's when he's Mr. Hyde that he's not. And I'm afraid he's still the same. I tell you this - there won't ever be any more Cream gigs, because he did Mr. Hyde in New York last year."

When asked to elaborate, Baker replied: "Oh, he shouted at me on stage, he turned his bass up so loud that he deafened me on the first gig. What he does is that he apologises and apologises, but I'm afraid, to do it on a Cream reunion gig, that was the end. He killed the magic, and New York was like 1968... It was just a get through the gig, get the money sort of deal. I was absolutely amazed. I mean, he demonstrated why he got the sack from Graham Bond and why Cream didn't last very long on stage in New York. I didn't want to do it in the first place simply because of how Jack was. I have worked with him several times since Cream, and I promised myself that I would never work with him again. When Eric first came up with the idea, I said no, and then he phoned me up and eventually convinced me to do it. I was on my best behaviour and I did everything I could to make things go as smooth as possible, and I was really pleasant to Jack."^[35]

Jack Bruce told Detroit's WCSX radio station in May 2007 that there were plans for a Cream reunion later in the year. It was later revealed that the potential performance was to be November 2007 London as a tribute to Ahmet Ertegün. The band decided against it and this was confirmed by Bruce in a letter to the editor of the Jack Bruce fanzine, The Cuicoland Express dated 26 September 2007:

"Dear Marc,

We were going to do this tribute concert for Ahmet when it was to be at the Royal Albert Hall but decided to pass when it was moved to the O2 Arena and seemed to be becoming overly commercial."

The headlining act for the O2 Arena Ertegun tribute show (postponed to December 2007) turned out to be another reunited English hard-rock act, Led Zeppelin. So while the band members are all still alive and talking again, no Cream reunions are planned for the near future.

In a recent interview with BBC 6 Music in April 2010, Bruce confirmed that there would be no more Cream shows. He said: "Cream is over. I think we were trying to forge a new musical language using what we knew. In the studio I had a lot to do with production, but in the live shows whoever took the lead took the lead, and we all tried to keep up. It was very competitive."

[edit] Discography