Tuesday, May 28, 2002 1:38:12 AM
Rock 'n' Roll Artists A-Z...Re: Cream
http://www.thecream.net
During the less than three years of Cream's existence, the group epitomized what three virtuoso musicians could achieve onstage, in essence defining the concepts "power trio" and "blues-rock improvisation." Though firmly grounded in electric Chicago blues, the group's excursions into free-form improvisation and extended solos revolutionized rock music and blazed a trail for others to follow, and often lesser talents attempted to do so-at their own peril. The group's moniker, originally suggested by Eric Clapton, served to put others on notice of the high caliber of the members' instrumentation skills. In a sense, Cream was to mid-1960s blues-rock what Robert Johnson was to late-1930s Delta blues. Both pushed the music forward by introducing a jazz player's virtuosity to the current state of the blues, thereby lifting it to a new level.
Formed in June 1966, it took less than two years for the unique musical freshness that was Cream to turn sour. What hastened this group's inevitable though drawn-out demise was simply the business of the music business. In other words, they became victims of their own success. Looking back, guitarist Eric Clapton now especially points out how the heady times that catapulted the band to top billing on the world stage also left them spiritually scarred for many years after the party was finally over.
For Clapton, the end came when the revered Rolling Stone magazine dubbed him "master of the blues clichés"; meanwhile, bass player Jack Bruce wanted out after the band played Madison Square Gardens on a corny revolving stage; likewise, Ginger Baker found such cavernous venues a totally unsuitable showcase for his intricate polyrhythmic style of drumming.
But by then-1968-it was as if their unique music had become secondary to the spectacle. The final straw, as far as the band was concerned, was that their fans' adulation persisted no matter how badly they played. For instance, Ginger Baker remembers the critically acclaimed farewell concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall in October 1968 as sadly mediocre affairs from a musical point of view. Still, the ovations echoed on into the night.
When they first came together, all three men were already highly accomplished musicians and refugees from other British R&B lineups: Eric Clapton was a former Yardbird and at the time of Cream's formation was enjoying tremendous success as lead guitarist in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers; bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker were former members of Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and the Graham Bond Organization.
From the very start, the chemistry of Cream was destined to be volatile. Previously, Baker had conspired to fire Bruce from the Graham Bond Organization and in the end had to resort to real threats of violence to persuade him to leave. In mid-1965, Bruce then spent a short time in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, where he first met and played alongside Clapton, who was astonished by the bass player's versatility.
But the fuse for the two-year musical firework display that was Cream at their best was lit when Clapton and Baker jammed together at a Bluesbreakers gig in Oxford in the spring of 1966. Afterwards, when Baker drove Clapton back to London in his car, the two young blues-rock virtuosos made plans: they both wanted to take electric blues into the future and make money in the process. Ironically, these two objectives sowed the seeds for not only the band's rise, but also for its sad, early demise when the moneymaking took over.
Another irony about that fateful car journey and one that would also hasten the end of the band some two and a half years later was Clapton's adamancy about having Bruce as their bass player. A few days later, an apologetic Baker went to visit old enemy Jack Bruce, who was by then a member of the pop group Manfred Mann. After Baker pleaded for forgiveness for forcing him out of the Graham Bond Organization, Bruce was ready and willing to forget past acrimonies, but theirs would forever be a difficult relationship, even when the music soared.
John Simon Asher Bruce was born May 14, 1943, in Bishopbriggs, Scotland, located three miles north of Glasgow. He started his musical education by studying cello and piano as well as by singing in the choir. Many years later, he discussed his childhood with Melody Maker: "When I was a young schoolboy I always wanted to play the bass-but was put on cello because I just wasn't big enough to handle the monster. At 15, having grown, I realized my first ambition, and played bass in the school orchestra, afterwards studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow."
His stay there was brief, however, because at 17, discouraged by his professors' lack of support for his interest in jazz and blues, he left the academy. Bruce had already begun gigging at jazz clubs, and he felt that that was more important to his development as a musician than studying classical harmony.
Bruce traveled to Italy, where he played double bass in the Murray Campbell Big Band before going to England to join Jim McHarg's Scotsville Jazz Band. While in Cambridge, Bruce made a strong impression when he sat in on a gig with sax player Dick Heckstall-Smith and drummer Ginger Baker. This led to Heckstall-Smith inviting him to sit in with Blues Incorporated, and he became the group's permanent bassist in May 1962. The two lobbied for Ginger Baker to join Blues Incorporated too, and by June, Baker had replaced Charlie Watts as the group's drummer. Watts, a future member of the Rolling Stones, was a fan of Baker's playing and so graciously gave up his place so that Baker could have a regular gig.
Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker was born on August 19, 1939, in Lewisham, London. As a teenager, he was a competitive bicyclist. He also became interested in jazz, particularly Dizzy Gillespie. When he was 14 he played trumpet, and he later performed in the Air Training Corp band. He switched to drums at 15 and turned professional within a few months.
At age 16, Baker answered an advertisement in Melody Maker for a drummer and joined the Storyville Jazz Men. During his first rehearsal with the band, he was provided with a set of instructional drumming records by famed New Orleans drummer Warren Dodds, a.k.a. Baby Dodds, that enormously aided his development. Dodds was an innovative drummer who introduced the concept of the one-man drummer to the jazz combo. Prior to his innovation, the percussion section typically consisted of three players, but he arranged the drums and cymbals in a way that allowed one person to play them all. His legacy includes recordings with Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers and Louis Armstrong's Hot Seven. Other drummers who made an impression on the fledgling Baker included Zutty Singleton (who led his own band and also played with Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and Roy Eldridge) and Buddy Rich (whose incredible drum solos earned him the title of "the world's greatest drummer"). While with the Storyville Jazz Men, Baker took part in studio recordings on September 19, 1957, with clarinetist Acker Bilk that were issued years later as Acker's Early Days. Saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith also took part in these sessions. Baker and Heckstall-Smith played together frequently in the succeeding years.
In August 1958, Baker left the Storyville Jazz Men to join Terry Lightfoot's Trad Band. However, his radical style of playing the heavy offbeat got him canned in short order. So in 1959, he went on a three-month tour of Copenhagen backing guitarist Diz Disley, and then made a tour of Scandinavia as support for American gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Although Baker was progressing as a musician, his fiery personality, heroin habit and radical style of playing limited his opportunities, and for a while he even considered quitting music altogether. However, England's legendary jazz drummer Phil Seamen saw him perform at the Flamingo and, recognizing his potential, encouraged him to continue. Baker continued to play for outfits and by 1961 was playing three or four nights a week with Dick Heckstall-Smith in a number of bands, including the Johnny Burch Octet and the Bert Courtley Band. He finally found a comfortable fit, at least temporarily, when Dick Heckstall-Smith invited him to sit in with Alexis Korner and Blues Incorporated, eventually replacing drummer Charlie Watts in June 1962.
The lineup of Blues Incorporated was fluid; between June and August 1962 it included Alexis Korner on guitar and vocals, Cyril Davies on harp and vocals, Jack Bruce on bass, Ginger Baker on drums, Dick Heckstall-Smith on saxophone, and several additional singers, including Paul Jones, Ronnie Jones and Mick Jagger. Sadly, no recordings from this period were ever released. In November 1962, sax player Graham Bond, formerly of the Johnny Burch Octet, joined and immediately settled in.
In February 1963, Bond handed Korner his resignation. Bond then formed his own band, taking Baker and Bruce with him and later adding guitarist John McLaughlin. By September 1963, McLaughlin departed after the rest of the band grew tired of his tendency to grumble and moan about the rigors of life as a musician. Dick Heckstall-Smith replaced him, and the classic lineup of the Graham Bond Organization was born. Together they issued two albums in 1965, The Sound of '65 and There's a Bond Between Us, but they never achieved a commercial breakthrough.
Jack Bruce stayed with the Organization for over two years until Ginger Baker ousted him in mid-1965. Baker informed the rest of the band that they would be better off without Bruce's "disturbing influence." The two were frequently at odds, and even brawled on stage on one occasion. After Baker had fired him, Bruce still turned up at several gigs and demanded to play. In the end, Baker had to threaten Bruce with a knife for Bruce to realize that it was preferable to be alive without a band as opposed to being a fatally wounded member of the Organization.
After finally realizing that his tenure was over with the Organization, Bruce became a member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers from October to December 1965, where he met Eric Clapton and played alongside Peter Green for a couple of gigs. While no studio recordings were made, this lineup can be heard on Primal Solos, a collection of primitive live recordings that includes five tracks said to have been recorded at the Flamingo Club. Another Flamingo track, "Stormy Monday," is on the John Mayall compilation Looking Back. Bruce left the Bluesbreakers to join the more commercially successful Manfred Mann in December 1965. He also released a solo single, "I'm Getting Tired (of Drinking and Gambling)" backed with "Rootin' Tootin'" (U.K./Polydor BM 56036).
In early 1966, Bruce took part in a session organized by Manfred Mann vocalist Paul Jones. Participants in the ad hoc lineup included Jones on harmonica, Eric Clapton on guitar, Ben Palmer on piano, Pete York on drums and Steve Winwood (using the pseudonym Steve Anglo for contractual reasons) on vocals. Three tracks recorded at this session ("I Want to Know," "Crossroads" and "Steppin' Out") appeared on the Elektra compilation album What's Shakin', issued under the group name "Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse." Oddly, the last two tracks became Cream staples. In a Guitar Player interview, Clapton referred to an additional track recorded at these sessions, a slow blues, but it has yet to surface.
In effect, Cream began to be formed during a Bluesbreakers gig at Oxford in April 1966 when Baker asked if he could sit in with the band. Baker's playing energized Clapton, and after the gig Baker broached the idea of forming a band together. Clapton discussed the event with Beat Instrumental: "I had thought about a tie-up with Jack and Ginger for months but I thought it wasn't likely to come off. For a start I thought that Ginger was just too good for me to play with; too jazzy. Then he approached ME, and to my surprise I found that he was really a solid rock drummer at heart. Jack? Well, he's always been a blues man." Clapton, apparently unaware of the acrimony between Baker and Bruce, said he would join only if Bruce came in as well. So Baker took the proposal to Bruce, who found it intriguing, and the two decided to put their differences aside.
From the band's inception, Clapton and Bruce saw Cream as a moneymaker as well as a creative step up from what they had done before. Both musicians were impressed by the Rover car that Baker owned and drove to early band meetings; Baker had bought it with money made from writing the B-side of the Who single "Substitute." Both Clapton and Bruce were by now disheartened by the subsistence wages they had received for years of working long hard hours on the blues circuit.
Musically, Clapton reportedly envisioned a blues trio in the style of Buddy Guy, with himself as the frontman. Any such thoughts were quickly dispersed during rehearsals, though, when Bruce brought in his own compositions. Baker invited Melody Maker reporter Chris Welch to a secret rehearsal at a school hall in Willesden, and Welch broke the story in the June 11, 1966, issue of the magazine under the headline "Eric, Jack & Ginger Team Up." The article announced, "A sensational new 'Group's Group' starring Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker is being formed," then further revealed, "It is expected that they will remain as a trio with Jack as featured vocalist."
Since neither Clapton nor Bruce had given notice yet to their respective bands, this premature announcement put them in an awkward position, particularly Clapton, who was the featured performer on the upcoming Mayall album, Blues Breakers: John Mayall with Eric Clapton. Mayall was far from pleased about the way in which Clapton left.
A follow-up article in the June 25, 1966, issue of Melody Maker announced that the group would call themselves "the Cream" and would be managed by Robert Stigwood, who had signed them to his Reaction label. In the subsequent issue of the music weekly, the group discussed how they intended to approach their music. "It's blues ancient and modern," Clapton said, while Bruce called their music "sweet and sour rock and roll." Ginger Baker revealed that the group was working on building material for their set. "At the moment we're trying to get a repertoire up for all the gigs we've got to do. We're digging back as far as we can, even 1927." Clapton also indicated his awareness of what others expected: "Most people have formed the impression of us as three solo musicians clashing with each other. We want to cancel that idea and be a group that plays together."
The band played a warm-up gig at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester on July 29, 1966, before making their official debut at the Sixth National Jazz and Blues Festival held at the Balloon Meadow, Windsor Racecourse, on July 31. Cream appeared on the final day of the three-day festival and were enthusiastically received by the audience. Clapton candidly assessed the group's performance for Record Mirror: "We were a bit ragged at Windsor. It'll take about two months before we're okay. We've got four good numbers and a few standards."
The group briefly flirted with the idea of using props during their performances, including live turkeys. "I had a concept, yeah, it was ridiculous at the time. It was a throw over of my art school scene, something like Dada," Clapton explained to the Los Angeles Times. "The Cream was originally going to be a stage presentation as well as the music, like happenings on stage. We did one gig, the first one we did and we had a gorilla on stage, a stuffed one. And we had a lot of strange little things happening like this and it didn't work, nothing happened 'cause we were so involved in music that we just forgot about all these things."
Following their success at Windsor, the group honed their style on the British blues club circuit. Their second club date on August 5, 1966, was held at the Cooks Ferry Inn, Edmonton, London, and was covered by Melody Maker. The magazine declared, "Enthusiastic shouting and cheering were reserved for the second half of their act when they dropped their nerves and reduced the gap between numbers. Solos from Eric, Ginger and Jack had the audience in raptures, calling for more." The review predicted big things for the group: "Although the Cream are still in the experimental stage, they are striving for a perfection which, when it does come, will be little short of sensational."
The group found time during their busy club schedule to record tracks for their initial single and album at Rayvik Studio (Chalk Farm, London). To help out with the lyrics, they brought in poet Pete Brown. Baker had shared the stage with Brown at St. Pancras town hall in London a few years earlier at some jazz and poetry evenings.
Their first single, "Wrapping Paper" backed with "Cat's Squirrel" (released in October 1966), stunned their fans. The A-side, a soft-shoe bluesy number composed by Jack Bruce with cinema-imagery lyrics added by Pete Brown, was quite unexpected and immediately put the group on the defensive. Bruce told Melody Maker, "I must admit that we wanted to shock people, there was a feeling of that." The flip side was a gutsy blues instrumental more in tune with what the fans wanted. The single peaked at #34 on the U.K. charts.
During their appearance on the BBC radio show Saturday Club, the show's affable host Brian Mathew queried Clapton about their unexpected single, especially the topside.
Mathew: Now Eric, you have a large and growing fan following here in Britain and I think that they expect a certain kind of music from you, a kind that they didn't get on your hit record "Wrapping Paper," would you agree?
Clapton: Ah yeah, I would agree because we did want to surprise them in a way because we didn't want them to sort of just you know accept us as a blues band. We want to be something more than that you know.
Mathew: Yeah, well you certainly did.
To Disc and Music Echo, Clapton reiterated the band's financial ambitions: "We want to make money. I've been working too hard for too little for too long and I thought it's time I did something about it." Clapton also confessed to Melody Maker, "I don't believe we'll ever get over to them [audiences]. People will always listen with biased ears, look through unbelieving eyes, and with preconceived ideas, remembering what we used to be, and so on."
While fans might have been surprised by the single, it was the Bruce/Brown songwriting credit for "Wrapping Paper" that left Ginger Baker stunned. Even today, he still insists that the whole group contributed to the writing of the song in the rehearsal studio. This misunderstanding became just one more bit of acrimony that Baker and Bruce would nurse between them in the future.
Cream simultaneously released their second single and their first album, Fresh Cream, on December 9, 1966. The single, "I Feel Free" backed with "N.S.U.," was a vast improvement over their initial release, and this time the critics were far more appreciative. Melody Maker wrote, "The Cream have stopped fooling around single-wise and come up with an excellent production . . . exciting, groovy and original." The title of the flip side was an acronym for non-specific urethritis, a form of venereal disease. Penned by the now prolific songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown, "I Feel Free" soared to #11 on the U.K. charts, though it stalled at #116 in the U.S. Fresh Cream was also a hit record, reaching #6 in the U.K. and #39 in the U.S.
Fresh Cream was a mixture of blues standards and original material that most critics rated highly. Melody Maker proclaimed it a good album and predicted, "There's sensational things to come from the Cream yet," while New Musical Express advised, "If you want something r-and-b way out, this is it." Jon Landau, writing for Crawdaddy, observed, "The three men in the group are individually exceptional," but he also mused, "There is too much chaff, too much unfulfilled experimentation, to make this a really first-rate album."
Cream (1966 - Nov. 1968)
Eric Clapton - guitar/vocals - b. Eric Clapp on March 30, 1945, Ripley, England; formerly with The Roosters and Casey Jones and the Engineers., The Yardbirds, and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.
Jack Bruce - bass/harmonica/vocals - b. John Symon Asher Bruce on May 14, 1943, Glasgow, Scotland; formerly with Alexis Korner, The Graham Bond Organisation, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and Manfred Mann.
Ginger Baker - drums/vocals - b. Peter Baker on August 19, 1939, Lewisham, England; formerly with Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and The Graham Bond Organisation.
Albums:
"Fresh Cream" (1966) - Single: "I Feel Free"
"Disraeli Gears" (1967) - Singles: "Strange Brew", "Sunshine of Your Love"
"Wheels of Fire" (1968) - Single: "White Room"
"Goodbye" (1969) - Single: "Badge"
"Live Cream" (1970)
"Live Cream, vol. 2" (1972)
After split, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker form Blind Faith with Steve Winwood (formerly of Traffic) and Rick Grech (formerly of Family). Jack Bruce goes solo, teams up with former Mountain guitarist Leslie West and drummer Corky Laing in West, Bruce and Laing, and later joins B.L.T. (with Robin Trower).
Compilations:
"The Best of Cream" (1969)
"Off the Top" (1972)
"The Best of Cream Live" (1975)
"Strange Brew: The Very Best of Cream" (1983)
"The Very Best of Cream" (1995)
"Those Were the Days" (4-CD box set) (1997) - This is THE Cream anthology, with all of their classic songs plus plenty of unreleased stuff.
If you already know you're a Cream/Clapton fan (who doesn't?), aren't intimidated by the price, and you don't have any of their music, go for their 1997 4-CD box set, "Those Were the Days"...you simply can't lose with this. It contains all of their historically released tracks along with a bunch of previously unreleased material. If you're a Clapton fan, you don't want to be without this.
]
Breaking Clay Makes My Day!
http://www.thecream.net
During the less than three years of Cream's existence, the group epitomized what three virtuoso musicians could achieve onstage, in essence defining the concepts "power trio" and "blues-rock improvisation." Though firmly grounded in electric Chicago blues, the group's excursions into free-form improvisation and extended solos revolutionized rock music and blazed a trail for others to follow, and often lesser talents attempted to do so-at their own peril. The group's moniker, originally suggested by Eric Clapton, served to put others on notice of the high caliber of the members' instrumentation skills. In a sense, Cream was to mid-1960s blues-rock what Robert Johnson was to late-1930s Delta blues. Both pushed the music forward by introducing a jazz player's virtuosity to the current state of the blues, thereby lifting it to a new level.
Formed in June 1966, it took less than two years for the unique musical freshness that was Cream to turn sour. What hastened this group's inevitable though drawn-out demise was simply the business of the music business. In other words, they became victims of their own success. Looking back, guitarist Eric Clapton now especially points out how the heady times that catapulted the band to top billing on the world stage also left them spiritually scarred for many years after the party was finally over.
For Clapton, the end came when the revered Rolling Stone magazine dubbed him "master of the blues clichés"; meanwhile, bass player Jack Bruce wanted out after the band played Madison Square Gardens on a corny revolving stage; likewise, Ginger Baker found such cavernous venues a totally unsuitable showcase for his intricate polyrhythmic style of drumming.
But by then-1968-it was as if their unique music had become secondary to the spectacle. The final straw, as far as the band was concerned, was that their fans' adulation persisted no matter how badly they played. For instance, Ginger Baker remembers the critically acclaimed farewell concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall in October 1968 as sadly mediocre affairs from a musical point of view. Still, the ovations echoed on into the night.
When they first came together, all three men were already highly accomplished musicians and refugees from other British R&B lineups: Eric Clapton was a former Yardbird and at the time of Cream's formation was enjoying tremendous success as lead guitarist in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers; bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker were former members of Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and the Graham Bond Organization.
From the very start, the chemistry of Cream was destined to be volatile. Previously, Baker had conspired to fire Bruce from the Graham Bond Organization and in the end had to resort to real threats of violence to persuade him to leave. In mid-1965, Bruce then spent a short time in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, where he first met and played alongside Clapton, who was astonished by the bass player's versatility.
But the fuse for the two-year musical firework display that was Cream at their best was lit when Clapton and Baker jammed together at a Bluesbreakers gig in Oxford in the spring of 1966. Afterwards, when Baker drove Clapton back to London in his car, the two young blues-rock virtuosos made plans: they both wanted to take electric blues into the future and make money in the process. Ironically, these two objectives sowed the seeds for not only the band's rise, but also for its sad, early demise when the moneymaking took over.
Another irony about that fateful car journey and one that would also hasten the end of the band some two and a half years later was Clapton's adamancy about having Bruce as their bass player. A few days later, an apologetic Baker went to visit old enemy Jack Bruce, who was by then a member of the pop group Manfred Mann. After Baker pleaded for forgiveness for forcing him out of the Graham Bond Organization, Bruce was ready and willing to forget past acrimonies, but theirs would forever be a difficult relationship, even when the music soared.
John Simon Asher Bruce was born May 14, 1943, in Bishopbriggs, Scotland, located three miles north of Glasgow. He started his musical education by studying cello and piano as well as by singing in the choir. Many years later, he discussed his childhood with Melody Maker: "When I was a young schoolboy I always wanted to play the bass-but was put on cello because I just wasn't big enough to handle the monster. At 15, having grown, I realized my first ambition, and played bass in the school orchestra, afterwards studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow."
His stay there was brief, however, because at 17, discouraged by his professors' lack of support for his interest in jazz and blues, he left the academy. Bruce had already begun gigging at jazz clubs, and he felt that that was more important to his development as a musician than studying classical harmony.
Bruce traveled to Italy, where he played double bass in the Murray Campbell Big Band before going to England to join Jim McHarg's Scotsville Jazz Band. While in Cambridge, Bruce made a strong impression when he sat in on a gig with sax player Dick Heckstall-Smith and drummer Ginger Baker. This led to Heckstall-Smith inviting him to sit in with Blues Incorporated, and he became the group's permanent bassist in May 1962. The two lobbied for Ginger Baker to join Blues Incorporated too, and by June, Baker had replaced Charlie Watts as the group's drummer. Watts, a future member of the Rolling Stones, was a fan of Baker's playing and so graciously gave up his place so that Baker could have a regular gig.
Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker was born on August 19, 1939, in Lewisham, London. As a teenager, he was a competitive bicyclist. He also became interested in jazz, particularly Dizzy Gillespie. When he was 14 he played trumpet, and he later performed in the Air Training Corp band. He switched to drums at 15 and turned professional within a few months.
At age 16, Baker answered an advertisement in Melody Maker for a drummer and joined the Storyville Jazz Men. During his first rehearsal with the band, he was provided with a set of instructional drumming records by famed New Orleans drummer Warren Dodds, a.k.a. Baby Dodds, that enormously aided his development. Dodds was an innovative drummer who introduced the concept of the one-man drummer to the jazz combo. Prior to his innovation, the percussion section typically consisted of three players, but he arranged the drums and cymbals in a way that allowed one person to play them all. His legacy includes recordings with Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers and Louis Armstrong's Hot Seven. Other drummers who made an impression on the fledgling Baker included Zutty Singleton (who led his own band and also played with Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and Roy Eldridge) and Buddy Rich (whose incredible drum solos earned him the title of "the world's greatest drummer"). While with the Storyville Jazz Men, Baker took part in studio recordings on September 19, 1957, with clarinetist Acker Bilk that were issued years later as Acker's Early Days. Saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith also took part in these sessions. Baker and Heckstall-Smith played together frequently in the succeeding years.
In August 1958, Baker left the Storyville Jazz Men to join Terry Lightfoot's Trad Band. However, his radical style of playing the heavy offbeat got him canned in short order. So in 1959, he went on a three-month tour of Copenhagen backing guitarist Diz Disley, and then made a tour of Scandinavia as support for American gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Although Baker was progressing as a musician, his fiery personality, heroin habit and radical style of playing limited his opportunities, and for a while he even considered quitting music altogether. However, England's legendary jazz drummer Phil Seamen saw him perform at the Flamingo and, recognizing his potential, encouraged him to continue. Baker continued to play for outfits and by 1961 was playing three or four nights a week with Dick Heckstall-Smith in a number of bands, including the Johnny Burch Octet and the Bert Courtley Band. He finally found a comfortable fit, at least temporarily, when Dick Heckstall-Smith invited him to sit in with Alexis Korner and Blues Incorporated, eventually replacing drummer Charlie Watts in June 1962.
The lineup of Blues Incorporated was fluid; between June and August 1962 it included Alexis Korner on guitar and vocals, Cyril Davies on harp and vocals, Jack Bruce on bass, Ginger Baker on drums, Dick Heckstall-Smith on saxophone, and several additional singers, including Paul Jones, Ronnie Jones and Mick Jagger. Sadly, no recordings from this period were ever released. In November 1962, sax player Graham Bond, formerly of the Johnny Burch Octet, joined and immediately settled in.
In February 1963, Bond handed Korner his resignation. Bond then formed his own band, taking Baker and Bruce with him and later adding guitarist John McLaughlin. By September 1963, McLaughlin departed after the rest of the band grew tired of his tendency to grumble and moan about the rigors of life as a musician. Dick Heckstall-Smith replaced him, and the classic lineup of the Graham Bond Organization was born. Together they issued two albums in 1965, The Sound of '65 and There's a Bond Between Us, but they never achieved a commercial breakthrough.
Jack Bruce stayed with the Organization for over two years until Ginger Baker ousted him in mid-1965. Baker informed the rest of the band that they would be better off without Bruce's "disturbing influence." The two were frequently at odds, and even brawled on stage on one occasion. After Baker had fired him, Bruce still turned up at several gigs and demanded to play. In the end, Baker had to threaten Bruce with a knife for Bruce to realize that it was preferable to be alive without a band as opposed to being a fatally wounded member of the Organization.
After finally realizing that his tenure was over with the Organization, Bruce became a member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers from October to December 1965, where he met Eric Clapton and played alongside Peter Green for a couple of gigs. While no studio recordings were made, this lineup can be heard on Primal Solos, a collection of primitive live recordings that includes five tracks said to have been recorded at the Flamingo Club. Another Flamingo track, "Stormy Monday," is on the John Mayall compilation Looking Back. Bruce left the Bluesbreakers to join the more commercially successful Manfred Mann in December 1965. He also released a solo single, "I'm Getting Tired (of Drinking and Gambling)" backed with "Rootin' Tootin'" (U.K./Polydor BM 56036).
In early 1966, Bruce took part in a session organized by Manfred Mann vocalist Paul Jones. Participants in the ad hoc lineup included Jones on harmonica, Eric Clapton on guitar, Ben Palmer on piano, Pete York on drums and Steve Winwood (using the pseudonym Steve Anglo for contractual reasons) on vocals. Three tracks recorded at this session ("I Want to Know," "Crossroads" and "Steppin' Out") appeared on the Elektra compilation album What's Shakin', issued under the group name "Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse." Oddly, the last two tracks became Cream staples. In a Guitar Player interview, Clapton referred to an additional track recorded at these sessions, a slow blues, but it has yet to surface.
In effect, Cream began to be formed during a Bluesbreakers gig at Oxford in April 1966 when Baker asked if he could sit in with the band. Baker's playing energized Clapton, and after the gig Baker broached the idea of forming a band together. Clapton discussed the event with Beat Instrumental: "I had thought about a tie-up with Jack and Ginger for months but I thought it wasn't likely to come off. For a start I thought that Ginger was just too good for me to play with; too jazzy. Then he approached ME, and to my surprise I found that he was really a solid rock drummer at heart. Jack? Well, he's always been a blues man." Clapton, apparently unaware of the acrimony between Baker and Bruce, said he would join only if Bruce came in as well. So Baker took the proposal to Bruce, who found it intriguing, and the two decided to put their differences aside.
From the band's inception, Clapton and Bruce saw Cream as a moneymaker as well as a creative step up from what they had done before. Both musicians were impressed by the Rover car that Baker owned and drove to early band meetings; Baker had bought it with money made from writing the B-side of the Who single "Substitute." Both Clapton and Bruce were by now disheartened by the subsistence wages they had received for years of working long hard hours on the blues circuit.
Musically, Clapton reportedly envisioned a blues trio in the style of Buddy Guy, with himself as the frontman. Any such thoughts were quickly dispersed during rehearsals, though, when Bruce brought in his own compositions. Baker invited Melody Maker reporter Chris Welch to a secret rehearsal at a school hall in Willesden, and Welch broke the story in the June 11, 1966, issue of the magazine under the headline "Eric, Jack & Ginger Team Up." The article announced, "A sensational new 'Group's Group' starring Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker is being formed," then further revealed, "It is expected that they will remain as a trio with Jack as featured vocalist."
Since neither Clapton nor Bruce had given notice yet to their respective bands, this premature announcement put them in an awkward position, particularly Clapton, who was the featured performer on the upcoming Mayall album, Blues Breakers: John Mayall with Eric Clapton. Mayall was far from pleased about the way in which Clapton left.
A follow-up article in the June 25, 1966, issue of Melody Maker announced that the group would call themselves "the Cream" and would be managed by Robert Stigwood, who had signed them to his Reaction label. In the subsequent issue of the music weekly, the group discussed how they intended to approach their music. "It's blues ancient and modern," Clapton said, while Bruce called their music "sweet and sour rock and roll." Ginger Baker revealed that the group was working on building material for their set. "At the moment we're trying to get a repertoire up for all the gigs we've got to do. We're digging back as far as we can, even 1927." Clapton also indicated his awareness of what others expected: "Most people have formed the impression of us as three solo musicians clashing with each other. We want to cancel that idea and be a group that plays together."
The band played a warm-up gig at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester on July 29, 1966, before making their official debut at the Sixth National Jazz and Blues Festival held at the Balloon Meadow, Windsor Racecourse, on July 31. Cream appeared on the final day of the three-day festival and were enthusiastically received by the audience. Clapton candidly assessed the group's performance for Record Mirror: "We were a bit ragged at Windsor. It'll take about two months before we're okay. We've got four good numbers and a few standards."
The group briefly flirted with the idea of using props during their performances, including live turkeys. "I had a concept, yeah, it was ridiculous at the time. It was a throw over of my art school scene, something like Dada," Clapton explained to the Los Angeles Times. "The Cream was originally going to be a stage presentation as well as the music, like happenings on stage. We did one gig, the first one we did and we had a gorilla on stage, a stuffed one. And we had a lot of strange little things happening like this and it didn't work, nothing happened 'cause we were so involved in music that we just forgot about all these things."
Following their success at Windsor, the group honed their style on the British blues club circuit. Their second club date on August 5, 1966, was held at the Cooks Ferry Inn, Edmonton, London, and was covered by Melody Maker. The magazine declared, "Enthusiastic shouting and cheering were reserved for the second half of their act when they dropped their nerves and reduced the gap between numbers. Solos from Eric, Ginger and Jack had the audience in raptures, calling for more." The review predicted big things for the group: "Although the Cream are still in the experimental stage, they are striving for a perfection which, when it does come, will be little short of sensational."
The group found time during their busy club schedule to record tracks for their initial single and album at Rayvik Studio (Chalk Farm, London). To help out with the lyrics, they brought in poet Pete Brown. Baker had shared the stage with Brown at St. Pancras town hall in London a few years earlier at some jazz and poetry evenings.
Their first single, "Wrapping Paper" backed with "Cat's Squirrel" (released in October 1966), stunned their fans. The A-side, a soft-shoe bluesy number composed by Jack Bruce with cinema-imagery lyrics added by Pete Brown, was quite unexpected and immediately put the group on the defensive. Bruce told Melody Maker, "I must admit that we wanted to shock people, there was a feeling of that." The flip side was a gutsy blues instrumental more in tune with what the fans wanted. The single peaked at #34 on the U.K. charts.
During their appearance on the BBC radio show Saturday Club, the show's affable host Brian Mathew queried Clapton about their unexpected single, especially the topside.
Mathew: Now Eric, you have a large and growing fan following here in Britain and I think that they expect a certain kind of music from you, a kind that they didn't get on your hit record "Wrapping Paper," would you agree?
Clapton: Ah yeah, I would agree because we did want to surprise them in a way because we didn't want them to sort of just you know accept us as a blues band. We want to be something more than that you know.
Mathew: Yeah, well you certainly did.
To Disc and Music Echo, Clapton reiterated the band's financial ambitions: "We want to make money. I've been working too hard for too little for too long and I thought it's time I did something about it." Clapton also confessed to Melody Maker, "I don't believe we'll ever get over to them [audiences]. People will always listen with biased ears, look through unbelieving eyes, and with preconceived ideas, remembering what we used to be, and so on."
While fans might have been surprised by the single, it was the Bruce/Brown songwriting credit for "Wrapping Paper" that left Ginger Baker stunned. Even today, he still insists that the whole group contributed to the writing of the song in the rehearsal studio. This misunderstanding became just one more bit of acrimony that Baker and Bruce would nurse between them in the future.
Cream simultaneously released their second single and their first album, Fresh Cream, on December 9, 1966. The single, "I Feel Free" backed with "N.S.U.," was a vast improvement over their initial release, and this time the critics were far more appreciative. Melody Maker wrote, "The Cream have stopped fooling around single-wise and come up with an excellent production . . . exciting, groovy and original." The title of the flip side was an acronym for non-specific urethritis, a form of venereal disease. Penned by the now prolific songwriting team of Jack Bruce and Pete Brown, "I Feel Free" soared to #11 on the U.K. charts, though it stalled at #116 in the U.S. Fresh Cream was also a hit record, reaching #6 in the U.K. and #39 in the U.S.
Fresh Cream was a mixture of blues standards and original material that most critics rated highly. Melody Maker proclaimed it a good album and predicted, "There's sensational things to come from the Cream yet," while New Musical Express advised, "If you want something r-and-b way out, this is it." Jon Landau, writing for Crawdaddy, observed, "The three men in the group are individually exceptional," but he also mused, "There is too much chaff, too much unfulfilled experimentation, to make this a really first-rate album."
Cream (1966 - Nov. 1968)
Eric Clapton - guitar/vocals - b. Eric Clapp on March 30, 1945, Ripley, England; formerly with The Roosters and Casey Jones and the Engineers., The Yardbirds, and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.
Jack Bruce - bass/harmonica/vocals - b. John Symon Asher Bruce on May 14, 1943, Glasgow, Scotland; formerly with Alexis Korner, The Graham Bond Organisation, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and Manfred Mann.
Ginger Baker - drums/vocals - b. Peter Baker on August 19, 1939, Lewisham, England; formerly with Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated and The Graham Bond Organisation.
Albums:
"Fresh Cream" (1966) - Single: "I Feel Free"
"Disraeli Gears" (1967) - Singles: "Strange Brew", "Sunshine of Your Love"
"Wheels of Fire" (1968) - Single: "White Room"
"Goodbye" (1969) - Single: "Badge"
"Live Cream" (1970)
"Live Cream, vol. 2" (1972)
After split, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker form Blind Faith with Steve Winwood (formerly of Traffic) and Rick Grech (formerly of Family). Jack Bruce goes solo, teams up with former Mountain guitarist Leslie West and drummer Corky Laing in West, Bruce and Laing, and later joins B.L.T. (with Robin Trower).
Compilations:
"The Best of Cream" (1969)
"Off the Top" (1972)
"The Best of Cream Live" (1975)
"Strange Brew: The Very Best of Cream" (1983)
"The Very Best of Cream" (1995)
"Those Were the Days" (4-CD box set) (1997) - This is THE Cream anthology, with all of their classic songs plus plenty of unreleased stuff.
If you already know you're a Cream/Clapton fan (who doesn't?), aren't intimidated by the price, and you don't have any of their music, go for their 1997 4-CD box set, "Those Were the Days"...you simply can't lose with this. It contains all of their historically released tracks along with a bunch of previously unreleased material. If you're a Clapton fan, you don't want to be without this.
] Breaking Clay Makes My Day!
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
