Cream (the band)
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Cream was a band in the late 60s ('66-'69) that, musically, broke new ground and records for record sales (bad pun). It's members - Eric Clapton (electric guitar, vocals on some tracks), Jack Bruce (bass, harmonica, piano, lead vocals) and Ginger Baker (drums), all came from the same sort of music background. Eric was a blues man, while Ginger and Jack were from the jazz circuit.
Founding Cream.
It all started when Ginger Baker got fed up with Graeme Bond and quit his band, The Graeme Bond Organisation. He decided it was time to start his own band. The first person that came to mind was Clapton. At the time Eric was with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, so Ginger travelled up to Oxford where they were playing. They found each other in the changing room, Eric asked Ginger to sit in. He did, and turned the gig around.
Ginger said "I'm getting a band together. Wanna join?"
Eric said "yea!"
History was made.
Then there was the matter of a bass player. Eric said "what about Jack?" Meaning Jack Bruce. Ginger wasn't too sure, as him and Jack had fallen out whilst they were at The Graeme Bond Organisation. But in the end it was decided. They had a band.
But not a name for the band. That was decided quickly. After Clapton's suggestion of Sweet'n'Sour Rock'n'Roll was rejected, they chose the name Cream after Clapton said "we're the cream", referring to the fact that they were all the most proficiant players of their instruments at the time1.
A record deal was snatched up with Robert Stigwood on his Reaction (this later changed to Atlantic) label. Stigwood, their manager, was not confident of their success, so he tried to milk the ban by putting them on a relentless touring schedule that would contribute to their downfall.
Cream.
That was in 1966. Their first 'gig', (if you like), was at Ginger's house at the Welsh Hart, outside an artificial lake where the kids would play. So they were playing and as they were they looked up and saw all these little childen dancing! A good boost for their confidence from the start.
In the early days, the band had hoped for an element of humour in their style and music. They gave up on the idea soon, with now only early promo photos showing what they'd hoped to be (before they got bored with it).
In early 1967, a man at Atlantic named Felix Papparlardi heard a song that Cream were working on. He liked it, and offered to take it home and do some work to it. That song was Strange Brew, which would go onto the Disreali Gears album, by which time Cream had taken on Papparlardi as their producer.
They released eight albums, four during and four after their time together.
- Fresh Cream (Dec 1966)
- Disraeli Gears (Nov 1967)
- Wheels Of Fire (Aug 1968)
- Goodbye (Mar 1969)
- Live Cream (Jun 1970)
- Live Cream Vol.2 (Jun 1972)
- The Very Best Of Cream (1995)
- Those Where The Days (1997)
Disraeli Gears got it's name from when the band was playing a word game with anagrams. Their roadie, who was into bikes and that, did some stuff with a comment that Clapton had made on Ginger Baker's new motorbike (rearranged the letters of what he'd said about the gears) and ended with with Disraeli Gears.
The big album was Wheels Of Fire. The world's first ever platinum selling album. Cream's records sold more copies in 24 months than the vinyl had sold in 24 years. 35 million copies. Some people say Cream was the world's first supergroup. Come on, what about The Beatles? Cream where the second supergroup.
So that was that. They become very rich and very famous. Until in 1969, whilst on tour, Clapton said "I'm just fed up with this" and Jack said "me too" and they decided to split. They released the Goodbye album, did a Farewell concert at the Albert Hall in London (which was mindblowing) and that was that. Clapton thought that the band was becoming too much of a prison, cos he's like that
