CREAM - Fresh Cream + Disraeli Gears

Cream were a 1960s British rock band, which consisted of guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker. Celebrated as one of the first great power trios and supergroups of rock, their sound was characterised by a melange of blues, pop and psychedelia. Cream combined Clapton's blues guitar playing with the airy voice and intense basslines of Jack Bruce and the jazz-influenced drumming of Ginger Baker.
Cream's music included songs based on traditional blues such as "Crossroads" and "Spoonful", and modern blues such as "Born Under a Bad Sign", as well as more eccentric songs such as "Strange Brew", "Tales of Brave Ulysses" and "Toad". Cream's biggest hits were "I Feel Free", "Sunshine of Your Love", "White Room", "Crossroads" and "Badge".
Cream, together with The Who, made a significant impact upon the popular music of the time providing a heavy yet technically proficient musical theme that foreshadowed the emergence of bands like Led Zeppelin in the late 1960s and Rush in the 1970s. The band's live performances influenced progressive rock acts and other jam bands, including the Grateful Dead, Phish, and even Black Sabbath.

Fresh Cream was Cream's December 1966 debut album. It reached number 6 in the UK and - eventually - number 39 in the US. The British version omitted I Feel Free (then their current single), while the US version contained it, though it dropped Spoonful. The CD re-issue of 2000 preserves both songs in the album's running order.
In 2003, the album was ranked number 101 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.


Tracks
"I Feel Free" (Bruce, Brown) – 2:51
"N.S.U." (Bruce) – 2:43
"Sleepy Time Time" (Bruce, Godfrey) – 4:20
"Dreaming" (Bruce) – 1:58
"Sweet Wine" (Baker, Godfrey) – 3:17
"Spoonful" (Dixon) – 6:30
"Cat's Squirrel" (Traditional, arr. S. Splurge) – 3:03
"Four Until Late" (Johnson, arr. Clapton) – 2:07
"Rollin' and Tumblin'" (Waters) – 4:42
"I'm So Glad" (James) – 3:57
"Toad" (Baker) – 5:11


Disraeli Gears is the second album by British blues-rock group Cream. It was originally released in November 1967 and went on to reach #5 on the UK album chart. It was also their American breakthrough, becoming a massive seller there in 1968, reaching #4 on American charts. The album features the two singles "Strange Brew" and "Sunshine of Your Love". By this time, the group was veering quite heavily away from their blues roots to indulge in more psychedelic sounds.
The title of the album, Disraeli Gears, was actually a bit of an inside joke. Eric Clapton had been thinking of getting a racing bicycle, and was discussing it with Ginger Baker, when Mick Turner, one of the roadies, commented on the performance of "those Disraeli Gears" meaning to say "derailleur gears". The band thought this was hilarious—Benjamin Disraeli was a prominent 19th Century British politician—and decided that it should be the title of their next album. Had it not been for Mick, the album would simply have been entitled Cream.
Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker all contributed songs with the help of lyricist Pete Brown and producer Felix Pappalardi. The track "Blue Condition" was unusual in that Baker, although by any account not a singer, took the lead vocal. The album was recorded in New York by their American label, the Atco division of Atlantic Records during the band's stay in the United States.
The lurid psychedelic cover art was created by Australian artist Martin Sharp, who lived in the same building as Clapton at the time of the Chelsea artists colony The Pheasantry. At their first meeting in a London club, Clapton mentioned that he had some music that needed lyrics, so Sharp wrote out a poem he had composed on a napkin and gave it to Clapton, who recorded it as "Tales of Brave Ulysses".


Tracks
"Strange Brew" (Clapton, Collins, Pappalardi) – 2:46
"Sunshine of Your Love" (Bruce, Brown, Clapton) – 4:10
"World of Pain" (Collins, Pappalardi) – 3:02
"Dance the Night Away" (Bruce, Brown) – 3:34
"Blue Condition" (Baker) – 3:29
"Tales of Brave Ulysses" (Clapton, Sharp) – 2:46
"SWLABR" (Bruce, Brown) – 2:31
"We're Going Wrong" (Bruce) – 3:26
"Outside Woman Blues" (Reynolds, arr. Clapton) – 2:24
"Take It Back" (Bruce, Brown) – 3:05
"Mother's Lament" (Traditional, arr. Bruce, Baker, Clapton) – 1:47



LINKS:

Fresh Cream
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Disraeli Gears
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