Cream - One of the Greatest Rock Bands of All Time

Added: 01/18/2006

After the band split in November 1968, the three musicians of Cream didn't perform again together until 1993, when the band was inducted into the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame and performed at the introduction ceremony. The band joined up in May 2005 to stage the four shows at the London's Royal Albert Hall, where their final concerts were held in 1968. Since then the members of Cream have decided to get together again - at least temporarily and record a new album.

Cream was an influential British rock band in 1960s which featured Eric Clapton as a guitarist, Jack Bruce as a bassist, and Ginger Baker as a drummer. Notable as the first of the great rock trios, their sound was characterized by a mixture of psychedelic and blues, mingling Clapton's mastery with the Jack Bruce's airy voice and, sometimes, hectic rhythms of Ginger Baker. Cream symbolized the great energy sound of that time, based on a well-known blues style; from the time-honored blues classics, for instance "Crossroads," through more unusual imagery exemplified in "Strange Brew," and culminating in the prolonged extravagances of "Toad" and "Spoonful".

Their greatest hits were "Sunshine of Your Love", "I Feel Free", "Badge", and "White Room", co-written by George Harrison and Eric Clapton. The late producer Felix Pappalardi, sometimes called Cream's "fourth member", is featured greatly on the Disraeli Gears album, tenderly remembered for Martin Sharp's remarkable design. British lyricist Pete Brown made another important contribution by writing the lyrics to numerous bands' songs.

At the same time as their studio materials and songwriting were somewhat formal, in a live environment Cream were just about a totally different band, improvising persistently, with songs frequently exceeding the twenty-minute mark. This brought them a status of the first jam band. A great deal of this derived from Baker and Bruce's origins as jazz performers, even though during an interview in the late 1980s Clapton qualified the widen soloing to their inability or unwillingness to stop playing. In view of their jazz origins, it is maybe ironic that Cream is also considered a settler of heavy metal.

Cream disbanded in November 1968 as a result of conflicting musical visions and egos: Baker and Bruce could barely get along, and Clapton notably related how he one time suddenly ceased playing in performance and neither of the others noticed. Enthused by more song-based groups akin to The Band, Eric Clapton began to perform a lot different, less improvisational music with Blind Faith, Delaney & Bonnie, his own Dominos and Derek. On the night when Cream broke up, Jimi Hendrix was playing live on the Lulu concert and broke in his own number, in place of an instrumental "Sunshine of Your Love" which he devoted to "the Cream".

What is worth saying about Cream is that the band made a large contribution into the popular rock music of the time, providing a heavy but precisely proficient musical themes that foretold the appearance of many great bands like Led Zeppelin in 1960s and 1970s, and made impact upon to the emergence of later forms of hard rock and heavy metal music. The live performances of the Cream influenced advanced rock performances and other jam bands like The Mods and Phish.

Cream Albums:

1966 - Fresh Cream
1967 - Disraeli Gears
1968 - Wheels of Fire
1969 - Goodbye
1970 - Live Cream
1972 - Live Cream Volume II
2005 - Royal Albert Hall, London, May 2-3-5-6 2005.

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