Cream

The news last month that Jack Bruce passed away at age 71 was a major bummer. But it did get me thinking about Cream, and since I didn't have anything by them on CD I purchased a greatest hits package. Lordy, they were good.

They were the first rock "supergroup"--that is, a group made up of members from other bands. Their name was more than a bit arrogant, as they decided they were the "cream" of the crop as far as their instruments, and who could disagree, even almost fifty years later, that Bruce on bass, Eric Clapton on guitar, and Ginger Baker on drums isn't one of the best collection of instrumentalists the rock world has ever known?

Cream formed in 1966. Clapton had quit The Yardbirds because they were becoming too mainstream. Bruce and Baker were in The Graham Bond Organisation, and they teamed up to become one of rock's first "power trios"--just a bass, lead guitar, and drums. They were all steeped in American blues, which they covered expertly, especially Robert Johnson's "Crossroads," Willie Dixon's "Spoonful," Skip James' "I'm So Glad," and Albert King's "Born Under a Bad Sign," which are all on their greatest hits album.

But Cream was also one of the authors of the '60s psychedelic movement, and created one of the decade's great anthems with "Sunshine of Your Love," That song was written by Bruce, Clapton, and Pete Brown, a poet who wrote all the lyrics for Bruce's songs. Bruce, who was normally the lead vocalist for the band, shares duties with Clapton, in a song about sex at dawn that has one of the great riffs of all time. I'd easily put in the top ten songs of the 1960s, if not the entire classic rock era.

As said, Bruce did most of the singing, frequently using an eerie falsetto, such as on "I Feel Free" and "Strange Brew," but shifting to more sinuous baritone on songs such as "White Room" and "N.S.U." I was surprised to read in the liner notes that it was Clapton who wrote the trippy "Tales of Brave Ulysses," which is a very '60s thing--a rock song about Greek myths:

"Her name is Aphrodite and she rides a crimson shell,
And you know you cannot leave her for you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave Ulysses, how his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing."

Tell me that doesn't make you think of black lights and beaded curtains.

Another fantastically weird song is "SWLABR," which is the stuff of a classic rock trivia question. It stands for "She walks like a bearded rainbow," and I have no idea what it's about, and certainly must have been written during a trip on something:

"So many fantastic colors; I feel in a wonderland.
Many fantastic colors makes me feel so good.
You've got that pure feel, such good responses.
You've got that rainbow feel but the rainbow has a beard."

The band split after three albums, mostly due to the quarreling of Baker and Bruce. Clapton and Baker were part of Blind Faith, who made only one album (a good parlor game is naming all the bands Clapton was in), while Bruce, not nearly as successful as Clapton, did have a long solo career. Cream is just one of the many reasons why I contend the '60s were the best decade for rock music.