Archive Review: Cream's The Very Best of Cream (1995)

In their time – which was almost thirty years ago – Cream was every bit as big commercially as Nirvana, Pearl Jam or Green Day are today. The band that introduced the term “supergroup” to the lexicon of rock ‘n’ roll, the trio of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker managed to live up to everyone’s lofty expectations and then some during their brief tenure. Their long-standing influence upon rock music is often overlooked these days, however, overshadowed by legends like Led Zeppelin or the Doors. The band’s seminal fusion of blues, jazz, and rock was to form the bedrock upon which many bands were to build their sound in the decades to follow, while one of the architects of Cream, guitarist Clapton, currently lives a revisionist daydream as an elder statesman of rock while most of his brightest moments lie in the past.

The Very Best of Cream is the first Cream “greatest hits” album to be released on CD that pulls together material from across the stylistic spectrum that the band musically explored. A collection of twenty songs, it includes the expected – ground-breaking covers of blues gems like Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful” and Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” as well as metal-tinged rockers like “Sunshine of Your Love” and “White Room” – as well as the unexpected, songs like the surprisingly popish “Wrapping Paper” or the psychedelic “Dance the Night Away.” Other Cream standards, such as “Badge,” with its incredible Clapton solo, “Strange Brew,” or the blues-tinged “Tales of Brave Ulysses” sound remarkably undated even with all the years that have passed. The Very Best of Cream draws heavily from the band’s three original studio recordings and the hits they yielded, filling out the edges with the handful of remaining singles that the band had released.

Given the benefit of hindsight, rock critics such as yours truly can make all sorts of claims about bands. Suffice it to say that Cream were...and still are...important. I can’t think of many recent hard rock and heavy metal bands that don’t some sort of musical debt to the trio. Clapton’s work with the band earned him a place in the pantheon of rock, regardless of what was to follow, and it was with Cream that he took his budding stardom to the heights of the music world. The Very Best of Cream is an excellent look at a band that, given their short time in the musical landscape – a little over two years – burned brightly, nonetheless. (Polydor Chronicles, released 1995)      

Review originally published by R.A.D! (Review and Discussion of Rock ‘n’ Roll) zine

Jack Bruce’s 50th Birthday Concerts

The late Jack Bruce made a lot of great music before his death last month, and just about everything he recorded during his lengthy career – his work with Cream, the power trio West, Bruce & Laing, and his numerous solo albums, from Songs For A Tailor and Harmony Row to this year's Silver Rails – features expressive, imaginative, entertaining, and adventuresome music.

Way back in 1993, Jack Bruce celebrated his 50th birthday with a pair of November shows at the E-Werk in Cologne, Germany that featured a number of his famous and talented friends. Former Cream drummer Ginger Baker made the party, as did noted British saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith (who played on Bruce’s early solo albums) and former Humble Pie guitarist Clem Clempson. Funkadelic guitarist Bernie Worrell and former Thin Lizzy guitarist and solo star Gary Moore joined the celebration, as did a number of other special guests like singer Maggie Reilly, pianist Gary Husband, and drummer Simon Phillips.

The performances were taped for the popular German TV show Rockpalast, and parts of them were originally released in 1994 as the two-disc Cities of the Heart. Sadly, that album suffered from poor distribution, and the concerts virtually disappeared memory. On December 2, 2014 however our good friends at MVD Entertainment are resurrecting this important slice of rock ‘n’ roll history with the release of The 50th Birthday Concerts starring Jack Bruce and friends.

The performances will be released in a number of formats, including a double-DVD set featuring almost four hours of music; a three-disc set that includes the two DVDs and a bonus CD, The Lost Tracks, as well as a 12-page booklet with new liner notes and unreleased photos; and a deluxe four-disc box set with three DVDs and the CD, the bonus DVD including interview footage.

Reflecting the entirety of Bruce’s career, The 50th Birthday Concerts includes a smorgasbord of rock, blues, and jazz music including many gems from the Cream songbook like “Sunshine of Your Love” (featuring Bruce’s legendary bass riff), “White Room,” “Politician,” and “Spoonful,” as well as the classic “Theme From An Imaginary Western,” from Bruce’s 1969 solo debut Songs For A Tailor. A number of previously unreleased songs that have been sitting in the archives will be included on the new set, including versions of “Blues You Can’t Lose” and the acoustic “Rope Ladder To The Moon,” and alternative performances of other songs.

The 50th Birthday Concerts is a fitting tribute to one of the rock music world’s essential talents, and for those unfamiliar with Jack Bruce’s enormous musical legacy, it’s also a good place to discover an incredible artist.

Buy the DVD/CD set at Amazon.com: Jack Bruce's The 50th Birthday Concerts

Eric Clapton & Cream Vinyl Box Set Coming!

Here’s a fine present that any classic rock fan would salivate over finding underneath their tree come Christmas morning. On November 24, 2014 Universal Music will release Cream: 1966-1972, a seven-disc vinyl box set that includes all six of the legendary British blues-rock band’s four studio and two live albums pressed onto 180-gram heavyweight audiophile vinyl, with exact reproductions of each album’s original artwork, all of it gloriously packaged in a rigid slipcase box.

Formed in 1966 by guitarist Eric Clapton (fresh off stints with the Yardbirds and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers), bassist Jack Bruce (another Bluesbreakers alumni), and drummer Ginger Baker (via the Graham Bond Organization), Cream was one of the first “supergroups” on the British blues-rock scene. The erstwhile power trio revolutionized rock music by combining elements of blues, hard rock, and psychedelic rock, as well as elements of jazz in the creation of a unique and exciting new sound that, nearly fifty years later, still thrills listeners with its bold instrumentation and imaginative lyrics, frequently penned by poet Pete Brown.

Fresh Cream

Cream had a monster hit single right out of the box with the Jack Bruce/Pete Brown song “I Feel Free,” following it up with their 1967 debut album Fresh Cream a few months later. The album featured a number of original songs, covers of vintage blues gems like Skip James’ “I’m So Glad,” Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ & Tumblin’,” and Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful,” which drove the album to number six on the U.K. charts and into the U.S. Top 40.

By the end of the year, Cream would release the band’s landmark Disraeli Gears album, its striking psychedelic Martin Sharp cover art masking a phenomenal set of songs, the album racing up to number four on the U.S. album chart on the strength of the hit single “Sunshine of Your Love.” The album offered up other classic rock tunes in “Strange Brew” and “Tales of Brave Ulysses” that further re-worked the blues idiom into a fresh, remarkable new sound.

Wheels of Fire

If Disraeli Gears was Cream’s creative apex, the band’s 1968 album Wheels of Fire would be their commercial peak. A whopping two-album set (a rarity at the time), Wheels of Fire sat at number one on the U.S. album chart for a month and hit number three on the U.K. chart, spawning hit singles in “White Room” (#6) and a live cover of Delta blues legend Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” (#28), which has since become Clapton’s signature song. One disc of Wheels of Fire was comprised of new studio recordings (including covers of Albert King’s “Born Under A Bad Sign” and the Mississippi Sheiks’ “Sittin’ On Top Of The World”) while the other disc offered four extended live tracks from the Fillmore West in San Francisco. The LP moved a lot of flapjacks, too, certified Gold almost immediately upon its release.

Cream circa 1967

By the time of the release of Wheels of Fire, tensions in the band (particularly between Bruce and Baker), as well as the exhausting touring done by the band over the previous two years, led to an inevitable break up. The band performed a farewell tour in late 1968, concluding at the Royal Albert Hall in London in November before calling it quits. Not willing to give up a cash cow, however, the label coaxed the band back into the studio to record a few tracks, which resulted in Cream’s final studio album, Goodbye, released in March 1969. A mix of live and studio tracks, Goodbye shot up to number one in the U.K. and number two on the U.S. chart on the back of the hit single “Badge,” the song co-written by Clapton and George Harrison, who played rhythm guitar on the session under the name L’Angelo Misterioso.
  

Cream’s Legacy

Two posthumous Cream albums were released after the band’s break up, the first in 1970 (Live Cream), which included performances from the Fillmore West and Winterland in San Francisco circa 1968, along with one lone studio recording (“Lawdy Mama”). The second, Live Cream Volume 2, was released in 1972 and included more Winterland ’68 performances along with three 1968 performances from the Oakland Coliseum. Both live albums would chart in the Top 30 on both the U.S. and the U.K. charts. Since then, a steady stream of anthologies and compilation albums would be released to capitalize on the band’s legacy, including a ten-track Best of Cream in 1969 (with its vegetable cover art - I totally had this LP!) and the double-album set Heavy Cream in 1973, as well as a 2003 collection of the band’s BBC radio performances.

Eric Clapton, of course, has gone on to a lengthy and storied solo career, as well as recording landmark albums with supergroups Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominos. Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker have found less commercial success during the years, but are both still making fine music (Bruce’s critically-acclaimed 2014 album, Silver Rails, is brilliant). In 2006, Cream received a Grammy® Lifetime Achievement Award, and the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. The band’s 2005 reunion shows in London and New York City sold out in less than an hour, attracting fans from across the globe.  

Cream: 1966-1972 brings the band’s immense musical legacy full-circle, once again capturing on vinyl the magic and the band chemistry that mesmerized listeners in the 1960s for a new audience to discover.

Buy the LP box set on Amazon.com: Cream: 1966 - 1972 (LP box set)