CREAM
''LIVE CREAM''
APRIL 1970
41:34
1 /N.S.U.
Jack Bruce/10:15
2 /Sleepy Time Time
Jack Bruce / Janet Godfrey/6:52
3 /Sweet Wine
Ginger Baker / Janet Godfrey/15:16
4 /Rollin' and Tumblin'
Muddy Waters/6:42
5 /Lawdy Mama
Eric Clapton / Traditional/2:46
Ginger Baker/Drums, Percussion
Jack Bruce/Bass, Harmonica, Vocals
Eric Clapton/Guitar, Vocals
REVIEW
by Bruce Eder
Cream was a band born to the stage, a fact that the band and their record label realized the public fully understood by the number one U.S. chart placement for Wheels of Fire, with its entire live disc, and the number two chart peak for Goodbye, the posthumous release that was dominated by concert recordings. And in response to those success, we got Live Cream, Vol. 1 (originally known simply as Live Cream) in the spring of 1970, nearly 18 months after the trio's breakup. This could well be their most consistently brilliant album for sheer musicianship, though it is also a peculiar one on a couple of counts, some of which probably prevented it from reaching quite as wide an audience as it might have otherwise. Released in April 1970 and derived from tapes made at three May 1968 California shows, all of the live tracks here consist of songs originally featured on the group's least ambitious and most rudimentary album, Fresh Cream, dating from 1966 -- and as it happens, there's not a hit represented among the five songs, a fact that probably made this release seem more appealing to hardcore fans than to casual and curious listeners (who didn't know what they were missing). The performances here show how far the group had come in the nearly two years since laying down the studio originals -- take side one of the original LP, where they stretch out their playing, as well as boost it to new levels of intensity, on "N.S.U." and "Sleepy Time Time," so that the renditions here are the definitive ones, and by themselves should have made this album an essential acquisition back in 1970. But that brings us to the original side two and the 15-minute rendition of "Sweet Wine," an excursion by all three players that is worth the quarter-hour time commitment of the listener. The live portion of the album ends with their searing, rollicking high energy rendition of Muddy Waters' "Rollin' and Tumblin'." And then, for reasons not clear -- except perhaps simply that it was there, in the vaults, and seemed like a valuable piece of property, which it was (and what else were they going to do with it?) -- the producers close Live Cream with a studio cut, "Lawdy Mama," an Eric Clapton-inspired take on a traditional tune that subsequently evolved into the hit "Strange Brew" during what became the Disraeli Gears sessions. It's not a match for everything we've heard, but in the spring of 1970 no one was exactly complaining over being handed a previously unissued studio track by the Cream, as a bonus to the concert performances here. As it turned out, there were more live tracks from some of these same shows to draw on in future releases and reissues, which would include a couple of the group's hits; but Live Cream offers the overall highest quality, both in terms of clarity and fidelity, and the performances, which, in addition to the essential great playing (better in some ways than what was heard on some of the much-vaunted live tracks from Wheels of Fire), include excellent vocalizing by Clapton and Jack Bruce. Not that vocalizing looms that large here -- the live tracks are all given extended jazz-based treatment, and the dialog among the three musicians as the jams develop is fascinating. Foreground and background seem to dissolve as all three musicians take charge, using the full range of their instruments. And where Bruce goes with his bass, especially on "Sweet Wine," is every bit as rewarding as the places that Clapton's guitar takes us; and Ginger Baker's playing is a trip all its own. Performances like this single-handedly raised the stakes of musicianship in rock.
BIOGRAPHY
by Richie Unterberger
Although Cream was only together for a little more than two years, their influence was immense, both during their late-'60s peak and in the years following their breakup. Cream was the first top group to truly exploit the power-trio format, in the process laying the foundation for much blues-rock and hard rock of the 1960s and 1970s. It was with Cream, too, that guitarist Eric Clapton truly became an international superstar. Critical revisionists have tagged the band as overrated, citing the musicians' emphasis upon flash, virtuosity, and showmanship at the expense of taste and focus. This was sometimes true of their live shows in particular, but in reality the best of their studio recordings were excellent fusions of blues, pop, and psychedelia, with concise original material outnumbering the bloated blues jams and overlong solos.
Cream could be viewed as the first rock supergroup to become superstars, although none of the three members were that well-known when the band formed in mid-1966. Eric Clapton had the biggest reputation, having established himself as a guitar hero first with the Yardbirds, and then in a more blues-intensive environment with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. (In the States, however, he was all but unknown, having left the Yardbirds before "For Your Love" made the American Top Ten.) Bassist/singer Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker had both been in the Graham Bond Organisation, an underrated British R&B combo that drew extensively upon the jazz backgrounds of the musicians. Bruce had also been, very briefly, a member of the Bluesbreakers along Clapton, and also briefly a member of Manfred Mann when he became especially eager to pay the rent.
All three of the musicians yearned to break free of the confines of the standard rock/R&B/blues group, in a unit that would allow them greater instrumental and improvisational freedom, somewhat in the mold of a jazz outfit. Eric Clapton's stunning guitar solos would get much of the adulation, yet Bruce was at least as responsible for shaping the group's sound, singing most of the material in his rich voice. He also wrote their best original compositions, sometimes in collaboration with outside lyricist Pete Brown.
At first Cream's focus was electrified and amped-up traditional blues, which dominated their first album, Fresh Cream, which made the British Top Ten in early 1967. Originals like "N.S.U." and "I Feel Free" gave notice that the band were capable of moving beyond the blues, and they truly found their voice on Disraeli Gears in late 1967, which consisted mostly of group-penned songs. Here they fashioned invigorating, sometimes beguiling hard-driving psychedelic pop, which included plenty of memorable melodies and effective harmonies along with the expected crunching riffs. "Strange Brew," "Dance the Night Away," "Tales of Brave Ulysses," and "S.W.L.A.B.R." are all among their best tracks, and the album broke the band big time in the States, reaching the Top Five. It also generated their first big U.S. hit single, "Sunshine of Your Love," which was based around one of the most popular hard rock riffs of the '60s.
With the double album Wheels of Fire, Cream topped the American charts in 1968, establishing themselves alongside the Beatles and Hendrix as one of the biggest rock acts in the world. The record itself was a more erratic affair than Disraeli Gears, perhaps dogged by the decision to present separate discs of studio and live material; the concert tracks in particular did much to establish their reputation, for good or ill, for stretching songs way past the ten-minute mark on-stage. The majestically doomy "White Room" gave Cream another huge American single, and the group was firmly established as one of the biggest live draws of any kind. Their decision to disband in late 1968 -- at a time when they were seemingly on top of the world -- came as a shock to most of the rock audience.
Cream's short lifespan, however, was in hindsight unsurprising given the considerable talents, ambitions, and egos of each of its members. Clapton in particular was tired of blowing away listeners with sheer power, and wanted to explore more subtle directions. After a farewell tour of the States, the band broke up in November 1968. In 1969, however, they were in a sense bigger than ever; a posthumous album featuring both studio and live material, Goodbye, made number two, highlighted by the haunting Eric Clapton-George Harrison composition "Badge," which remains one of Cream's most beloved tracks.
Clapton and Baker would quickly resurface in 1969 as half of another short-lived supergroup, Blind Faith, and Clapton of course went on to one of the longest and most successful careers of anyone in the rock business. Bruce and Baker never attained nearly as high a profile after leaving Cream, but both kept busy in the ensuing decades with various interesting projects in the fields of rock, jazz, and experimental music.
''LIVE CREAM''
APRIL 1970
41:34
1 /N.S.U.
Jack Bruce/10:15
2 /Sleepy Time Time
Jack Bruce / Janet Godfrey/6:52
3 /Sweet Wine
Ginger Baker / Janet Godfrey/15:16
4 /Rollin' and Tumblin'
Muddy Waters/6:42
5 /Lawdy Mama
Eric Clapton / Traditional/2:46
Ginger Baker/Drums, Percussion
Jack Bruce/Bass, Harmonica, Vocals
Eric Clapton/Guitar, Vocals
REVIEW
by Bruce Eder
Cream was a band born to the stage, a fact that the band and their record label realized the public fully understood by the number one U.S. chart placement for Wheels of Fire, with its entire live disc, and the number two chart peak for Goodbye, the posthumous release that was dominated by concert recordings. And in response to those success, we got Live Cream, Vol. 1 (originally known simply as Live Cream) in the spring of 1970, nearly 18 months after the trio's breakup. This could well be their most consistently brilliant album for sheer musicianship, though it is also a peculiar one on a couple of counts, some of which probably prevented it from reaching quite as wide an audience as it might have otherwise. Released in April 1970 and derived from tapes made at three May 1968 California shows, all of the live tracks here consist of songs originally featured on the group's least ambitious and most rudimentary album, Fresh Cream, dating from 1966 -- and as it happens, there's not a hit represented among the five songs, a fact that probably made this release seem more appealing to hardcore fans than to casual and curious listeners (who didn't know what they were missing). The performances here show how far the group had come in the nearly two years since laying down the studio originals -- take side one of the original LP, where they stretch out their playing, as well as boost it to new levels of intensity, on "N.S.U." and "Sleepy Time Time," so that the renditions here are the definitive ones, and by themselves should have made this album an essential acquisition back in 1970. But that brings us to the original side two and the 15-minute rendition of "Sweet Wine," an excursion by all three players that is worth the quarter-hour time commitment of the listener. The live portion of the album ends with their searing, rollicking high energy rendition of Muddy Waters' "Rollin' and Tumblin'." And then, for reasons not clear -- except perhaps simply that it was there, in the vaults, and seemed like a valuable piece of property, which it was (and what else were they going to do with it?) -- the producers close Live Cream with a studio cut, "Lawdy Mama," an Eric Clapton-inspired take on a traditional tune that subsequently evolved into the hit "Strange Brew" during what became the Disraeli Gears sessions. It's not a match for everything we've heard, but in the spring of 1970 no one was exactly complaining over being handed a previously unissued studio track by the Cream, as a bonus to the concert performances here. As it turned out, there were more live tracks from some of these same shows to draw on in future releases and reissues, which would include a couple of the group's hits; but Live Cream offers the overall highest quality, both in terms of clarity and fidelity, and the performances, which, in addition to the essential great playing (better in some ways than what was heard on some of the much-vaunted live tracks from Wheels of Fire), include excellent vocalizing by Clapton and Jack Bruce. Not that vocalizing looms that large here -- the live tracks are all given extended jazz-based treatment, and the dialog among the three musicians as the jams develop is fascinating. Foreground and background seem to dissolve as all three musicians take charge, using the full range of their instruments. And where Bruce goes with his bass, especially on "Sweet Wine," is every bit as rewarding as the places that Clapton's guitar takes us; and Ginger Baker's playing is a trip all its own. Performances like this single-handedly raised the stakes of musicianship in rock.
BIOGRAPHY
by Richie Unterberger
Although Cream was only together for a little more than two years, their influence was immense, both during their late-'60s peak and in the years following their breakup. Cream was the first top group to truly exploit the power-trio format, in the process laying the foundation for much blues-rock and hard rock of the 1960s and 1970s. It was with Cream, too, that guitarist Eric Clapton truly became an international superstar. Critical revisionists have tagged the band as overrated, citing the musicians' emphasis upon flash, virtuosity, and showmanship at the expense of taste and focus. This was sometimes true of their live shows in particular, but in reality the best of their studio recordings were excellent fusions of blues, pop, and psychedelia, with concise original material outnumbering the bloated blues jams and overlong solos.
Cream could be viewed as the first rock supergroup to become superstars, although none of the three members were that well-known when the band formed in mid-1966. Eric Clapton had the biggest reputation, having established himself as a guitar hero first with the Yardbirds, and then in a more blues-intensive environment with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. (In the States, however, he was all but unknown, having left the Yardbirds before "For Your Love" made the American Top Ten.) Bassist/singer Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker had both been in the Graham Bond Organisation, an underrated British R&B combo that drew extensively upon the jazz backgrounds of the musicians. Bruce had also been, very briefly, a member of the Bluesbreakers along Clapton, and also briefly a member of Manfred Mann when he became especially eager to pay the rent.
All three of the musicians yearned to break free of the confines of the standard rock/R&B/blues group, in a unit that would allow them greater instrumental and improvisational freedom, somewhat in the mold of a jazz outfit. Eric Clapton's stunning guitar solos would get much of the adulation, yet Bruce was at least as responsible for shaping the group's sound, singing most of the material in his rich voice. He also wrote their best original compositions, sometimes in collaboration with outside lyricist Pete Brown.
At first Cream's focus was electrified and amped-up traditional blues, which dominated their first album, Fresh Cream, which made the British Top Ten in early 1967. Originals like "N.S.U." and "I Feel Free" gave notice that the band were capable of moving beyond the blues, and they truly found their voice on Disraeli Gears in late 1967, which consisted mostly of group-penned songs. Here they fashioned invigorating, sometimes beguiling hard-driving psychedelic pop, which included plenty of memorable melodies and effective harmonies along with the expected crunching riffs. "Strange Brew," "Dance the Night Away," "Tales of Brave Ulysses," and "S.W.L.A.B.R." are all among their best tracks, and the album broke the band big time in the States, reaching the Top Five. It also generated their first big U.S. hit single, "Sunshine of Your Love," which was based around one of the most popular hard rock riffs of the '60s.
With the double album Wheels of Fire, Cream topped the American charts in 1968, establishing themselves alongside the Beatles and Hendrix as one of the biggest rock acts in the world. The record itself was a more erratic affair than Disraeli Gears, perhaps dogged by the decision to present separate discs of studio and live material; the concert tracks in particular did much to establish their reputation, for good or ill, for stretching songs way past the ten-minute mark on-stage. The majestically doomy "White Room" gave Cream another huge American single, and the group was firmly established as one of the biggest live draws of any kind. Their decision to disband in late 1968 -- at a time when they were seemingly on top of the world -- came as a shock to most of the rock audience.
Cream's short lifespan, however, was in hindsight unsurprising given the considerable talents, ambitions, and egos of each of its members. Clapton in particular was tired of blowing away listeners with sheer power, and wanted to explore more subtle directions. After a farewell tour of the States, the band broke up in November 1968. In 1969, however, they were in a sense bigger than ever; a posthumous album featuring both studio and live material, Goodbye, made number two, highlighted by the haunting Eric Clapton-George Harrison composition "Badge," which remains one of Cream's most beloved tracks.
Clapton and Baker would quickly resurface in 1969 as half of another short-lived supergroup, Blind Faith, and Clapton of course went on to one of the longest and most successful careers of anyone in the rock business. Bruce and Baker never attained nearly as high a profile after leaving Cream, but both kept busy in the ensuing decades with various interesting projects in the fields of rock, jazz, and experimental music.
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