Cream - Non Remastered Albums Collection 1966-1972 [7CD]



Cream fue un power trio de rock fundado en Londres, en 1966 por el bajista y vocalista Jack Bruce, el batería Ginger Baker y el guitarrista y vocalista Eric Clapton. Su sonido se caracterizaba por ser un híbrido de blues, rock psicodélico y hard rock, combinado con letras de temática psicodélica. Cream es a menudo considerado como el primer supergrupo de éxito y a pesar de haber estado en activo apenas dos años,2 1 ha vendido más de quince millones de copias en todo el mundo.3 La banda tuvo un impacto significativo en la música popular de le época y junto a Jimi Hendrix y Terry Kath de Chicago, popularizó el uso del pedal wah-wah.4

Después de grabar cuatro álbumes de larga duración (Fresh Cream, Disraeli Gears, Wheels of Fire y Goodbye), el grupo se separó a finales de 1968 debido a la mala relación entre Baker y Bruce. La banda se reunió posteriormente en 1993, con motivo de su ingreso en el Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,5 y en 2005, para unas actuaciones en el Royal Albert Hall y el Madison Square Garden.

A pesar de su corta trayectoria, Cream ha influenciado a un gran número de grupos posteriores,2 1 y ha sido incluido en las listas de los «100 mejores artistas de todos los tiempos» de la revista Rolling Stone y el canal musical VH1.6 En 2006, el trío recibió un Grammy honorífico en reconocimiento de su carrera artística.

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Genre: British Psychedelia, Blues Rock, Hard Rock | Time: 04:36:33 | Scans included

Collection includes: 'Fresh Cream' (1966); 'Disraeli Gears' (1967); 'Wheels of
Fire' (1968); 'Goodbye' (1969); 'Live Cream' (1970) and 'Live Cream II'
(1972).

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.

Сream'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.

Biography by Richie Unterberger, Allmusic.com

Fresh Cream (1966)
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Label: Polydor/PolyGram | # 827 576-2 | Time: 00:46:23 | Scans included

Fresh Cream represents so many different firsts, it's difficult to keep
count. Cream, of course, was the first supergroup, but their first album
not only gave birth to the power trio, it also was instrumental in the
birth of heavy metal and the birth of jam rock. That's a lot of weight
for one record and, like a lot of pioneering records, Fresh Cream
doesn't seem quite as mighty as what would come later, both from the
group and its acolytes. In retrospect, the moments on the LP that are a
bit unformed -- in particular, the halting waltz of "Dreaming" never
achieves the sweet ethereal atmosphere it aspires to -- stand out more
than the innovations, which have been so thoroughly assimilated into the
vocabulary of rock & roll, but Fresh Cream was a remarkable shift
forward in rock upon its 1966 release and it remains quite potent.
Certainly at this early stage the trio was still grounded heavily in
blues, only fitting given guitarist Eric Clapton's stint in John
Mayall's Bluesbreakers, which is where he first played with bassist Jack
Bruce, but Cream never had the purist bent of Mayall, and not just
because they dabbled heavily in psychedelia. The rhythm section of Bruce
and Ginger Baker had a distinct jazzy bent to their beat; this isn't
hard and pure, it's spongy and elastic, giving the musicians plenty of
room to roam. This fluidity is most apparent on the blues covers that
take up nearly half the record, especially on "Spoonful," where the
swirling instrumental interplay, echo, fuzz tones, and overwhelming
volume constitute true psychedelic music, and also points strongly
toward the guitar worship of heavy metal. Almost all the second side of
Fresh Cream is devoted to this, closing with Baker's showcase "Toad,"
but for as hard and restless as this half of the album is, there is some
lightness on the first portion of the record where Bruce reveals
himself as an inventive psychedelic pop songwriter with the tense,
colorful "N.S.U." and the hook- and harmony-laden "I Feel Free." Cream
shows as much force and mastery on these tighter, poppier tunes as they
do on the free-flowing jams, yet they show a clear bias toward the
long-form blues numbers, which makes sense: they formed to be able to
pursue this freedom, which they do so without restraint. If at times
that does make the album indulgent or lopsided, this is nevertheless
where Cream was feeling their way forward, creating their heavy
psychedelic jazz-blues and, in the process, opening the door to all
kinds of serious rock music that may have happened without Fresh Cream,
but it just would not have happened in the same fashion as it did with
this record as precedent.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com

Tracklist:

01. I Feel Free (02:52)
02. N.S.U. (02:44)
03. Sleepy Time Time (04:20)
04. Dreaming (01:59)
05. Sweet Wine (03:18)
06. Spoonful (06:30)
07. Cat's Squirrel (03:05)
08. Four Until Late (02:07)
09. Rollin 'And Tumblin' (04:42)
10. I'm So Glad (03:58)
11. Toad (05:10)
12. The Coffee Song (02:44)
13. Wrapping Paper (02:22)

Disraeli Gears (1967)
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Label: Polydor/PolyGram | # 823 636-2 | Time: 00:33:30 | Scans included

Cream teamed up with producer Felix Pappalardi for their second album,
Disraeli Gears, a move that helped push the power trio toward
psychedelia and also helped give the album a thematic coherence missing
from the debut. This, of course, means that Cream get further away from
the pure blues improvisatory troupe they were intended to be, but it
does get them to be who they truly are: a massive, innovative power
trio. The blues still courses throughout Disraeli Gears -- the swirling
kaleidoscopic "Strange Brew" is built upon a riff lifted from Albert
King -- but it's filtered into saturated colors, as it is on "Sunshine
of Your Love," or it's slowed down and blurred out, as it is on the
ominous murk of "Tales of Brave Ulysses." It's a pure psychedelic move
that's spurred along by Jack Bruce's flourishing collaboration with Pete
Brown. Together, this pair steers the album away from recycled
blues-rock and toward its eccentric British core, for with the fuzzy
freakout "Swlabr," the music hall flourishes of "Dance the Night Away,"
the swinging "Take It Back," and of course, the old music hall song
"Mother's Lament," this is a very British record. Even so, this crossed
the ocean and also became a major hit in America, because regardless of
how whimsical certain segments are, Cream are still a heavy rock trio
and Disraeli Gears is a quintessential heavy rock album of the '60s.
Yes, its psychedelic trappings tie it forever to 1967, but the
imagination of the arrangements, the strength of the compositions, and
especially the force of the musicianship make this album transcend its
time as well.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com

Tracklist:

01. Strange Brew (02:48)
02. Sunshine Of Your Love (04:12)
03. World Of Pain (03:02)
04. Dance The Night Away (03:34)
05. Blue Condition (03:29)
06. Tales Of Brave Ulysses (02:47)
07. Swlabr (02:31)
08. We're Going Wrong (03:25)
09. Outside Woman Blues (02:23)
10. Take It Back (03:04)
11. Mother's Lament (01:47)

Wheels of Fire (1968) 2CD
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Label: Polydor/PolyGram | # 827 578-2 | Time: 01:20:23 | Scans included

If Disraeli Gears was the album where Cream came into their own, its
successor, Wheels of Fire, finds the trio in full fight, capturing every
side of their multi-faceted personality, even hinting at the internal
pressures that soon would tear the band asunder. A dense, unwieldy
double album split into an LP of new studio material and an LP of live
material, it's sprawling and scattered, at once awesome in its
achievement and maddening in how it falls just short of greatness. It
misses its goal not because one LP works and the other doesn't, but
because both the live and studio sets suffer from strikingly similar
flaws, deriving from the constant power struggle between the trio. Of
the three, Ginger Baker comes up short, contributing the passable
"Passing the Time" and "Those Were the Days," which are overshadowed by
how he extends his solo drum showcase "Toad" to a numbing quarter of an
hour and trips upon the Wind & the Willows whimsy of "Pressed Rat
and Warthog," whose studied eccentricity pales next to Eric Clapton's
nimble, eerily cheerful "Anyone for Tennis." In almost every regard,
Wheels of Fire is a terrific showcase for Clapton as a guitarist,
especially on the first side of the live album with "Crossroads," a
mighty encapsulation of all of his strengths. Some of that is studio
trickery, as producer Felix Pappalardi cut together the best bits of a
winding improvisation to a tight four minutes, giving this track a
relentless momentum that's exceptionally exciting, but there's no
denying that Clapton is at a peak here, whether he's tearing off solos
on a 17-minute "Spoonful" or goosing "White Room" toward the heights of
madness. But it's the architect of "White Room," bassist Jack Bruce,
who, along with his collaborator Peter Brown, reaches a peak as a
songwriter. Aside from the monumental "White Room," he has the lovely,
wistful "As You Said," the cinematic "Deserted Cities of the Heart," and
the slow, cynical blues "Politician," all among Cream's very best work.
And in many ways Wheels of Fire is indeed filled with Cream's very best
work, since it also captures the fury and invention (and indulgence) of
the band at its peak on the stage and in the studio, but as it tries to
find a delicate balance between these three titanic egos, it doesn't
quite add up to something greater than the sum of its parts. But taken
alone, those individual parts are often quite tremendous.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com

Tracklist:

CD1:

01. White Room (04:57)
02. Sitting On Top Of The World (04:57)
03. Passing TheTime (04:30)
04. As You Said (04:18)
05. Pressed Rat And Warthog (03:13)
06. Politician (04:11)
07. Those Were The Days (02:54)
08. Born Under A Bad Sign (03:08)
09. Deserted Cities Of The Heart (03:37)

CD2:

01. Crossroads (04:14)
02. Spoonful (16:43)
03. Traintime (07:00)
04. Toad (16:15)

Goodbye (1969)
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Label: Polydor/PolyGram | # 823 660-2 | Time: 00:33:20 | Scans included

After a mere three albums in just under three years, Cream called it quits in
1969. Being proper gentlemen, they said their formal goodbyes with a
tour and a farewell album called -- what else? -- Goodbye. As a slim,
six-song single LP, it's far shorter than the rambling, out-of-control
Wheels of Fire, but it boasts the same structure, evenly dividing its
time between tracks cut on-stage and in the studio. While the live side
contains nothing as indelible as "Crossroads," the live music on the
whole is better than that on Wheels of Fire, capturing the trio at an
empathetic peak as a band. It's hard, heavy rock, with Cream digging
deep into their original "Politician" with the same intensity as they do
on "Sitting on Top of the World," but it's the rampaging "I'm So Glad"
that illustrates how far they've come; compare it to the original studio
version on Fresh Cream and it's easy to see just how much further
they're stretching their improvisation. The studio side also finds them
at something of a peak. Boasting a song apiece from each member, it
opens with the majestic classic "Badge," co-written by Eric Clapton and
George Harrison and ranking among both of their best work. It's followed
by Jack Bruce's "Doing That Scrapyard Thing," an overstuffed
near-masterpiece filled with wonderful, imaginative eccentricities, and
finally, there's Ginger Baker's tense, dramatic "What a Bringdown,"
easily the best original he contributed to the group. Like all of
Cream's albums outside Disraeli Gears, Goodbye is an album of moments,
not a tight cohesive work, but those moments are all quite strong on
their own terms, making this a good and appropriate final bow.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com

Tracklist:

01. I'm So Glad (09:12)
02. Politician (06:17)
03. Sitting On Top Of The World (05:01)
04. Badge (02:45)
05. Doing That Scrapyard Thing (03:14)
06. What A Bringdown (03:58)
07. Anyone For Tennis (02:36)

Live Cream (1970)
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Label: RSO/PolyGram | # 827 577-2 | Time: 00:41:40 | Scans included

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.

Review by Bruce Eder, Allmusic.com

Tracklist:

01. N.S.U. (10:11)
02. Sleepy Time Time (06:48)
03. Sweet Wine (15:13)
04. Rollin' And Tumblin' (06:33)
05. Lawdy Mama (02:47)

Live Cream II (1972)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 308 Mb (incl 5%) | Mp3 (CBR320/Stereo) ~ 126 Mb (incl 5%)
Label: RSO/PolyGram | # 823 661-2 | Time: 00:41:16 | Scans included

An oft-overlooked curio, Live Cream, Vol. 2 appeared at a very odd time,
with very little warning, almost two years after its predecessor -- and
at virtually the same time as the related (though not overlapping)
History of Eric Clapton. And both showed up, not coincidentally, at a
point when Clapton, unbeknownst to most of the public, was sidelined
with a crippling heroin addiction -- this album helped keep him in the
public eye, as a singer as well as a guitarist. On its face, Live Cream,
Vol. 2 is a more ambitious album that its predecessor, offering more
songs and including concert versions of two of the group's AM radio hits
(as opposed to the album tracks that comprised the repertory on Live
Cream, Vol. 1). And it is just about essential listening for anyone who
wants to understand what Cream was about, which was live performance.
Utilizing -- for the time -- state of the art mobile recording
equipment, it was a significant achievement at the time in capturing the
genuine sound of a high-wattage power trio on-stage, playing away at
full volume; and the overall sonic excellence here must surely be
credited to engineers Tom Dowd and Bill Halverson. The feeling that you
are in the front row is very much in evidence, and this is largely due
to their ability to capture the band's live fury with clarity and
intimacy, down to every nuance of Ginger Baker's playing. As for the
performances, this record does capture the band at their peak, though
perhaps not at the very best moments of that peak -- the group made
their reputation as a live act with epic, lengthy jams that verged on
jazz, but the repertory represented here (as opposed to that on Live
Cream, Vol. 1) is more focused on their pop/rock efforts, such as "White
Room," "Sunshine of Your Love," "Tales of Brave Ulysses," etc., which
don't lend themselves as easily (or at all) to opening out in extended
jams, in the manner of, say, "N.S.U." or "Sweet Wine," or the legendary
"Spoonful"; additionally, numbers such as "Sunshine of Your Love" and,
in particular, "White Room," require more vocal dexterity than Clapton
and bassist/singer Jack Bruce could muster in this kind of concert
setting -- their singing, especially on "White Room" comes close to
breaking down ("Sunshine of Your Love" fares better), whereas their
playing holds together, almost better than perfect at times. "Deserted
Cities of the Heart" -- which opens the album -- comes off exceptionally
well as a concert piece, the bass and guitar actually combining to
overcome the absences of swooping cellos, acoustic guitars, and other
accompanying instruments from the studio rendition. And there is one
priceless example of Cream in a full-tilt jam, on the 13-plus-minute
closing cut, "Steppin' Out" -- the band's sheer energy overcomes what
minor deficiencies there are in the overall sound quality. And coupled
with the compact, four- to five-minute versions of "Deserted Cities of
the Heart" and "Tales of Brave Ulysses," among others, the album is a
vital, intense, and enjoyable listen that is ultimately rewarding. The
original LP had its sonic limitations, and the original late-'80s CD
showcased these more severely, but the 1998 remastered CD, part of The
Cream Remasters series, solved most of those problems and offered the
best sound ever heard for this album.

Review by Bruce Eder, Allmusic.com

Tracklist:

01. Deserted Cities Of The Heart (04:32)
02. White Room (05:40)
03. Politician (05:06)
04. Tales Of Brave Ulysses (04:45)
05. Sunshine Of Your Love (07:24)
06. Steppin' Out (13:39)

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