Cream

[Ron Phillipchuk]

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Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup power trio consisting of bassist/singer Jack Bruce, drummer Ginger Baker, and guitarist/singer Eric Clapton. The group's third album, Wheels of Fire (1968), was the world's first platinum-selling double album..

The band is widely regarded as the world's first successful supergroup. In their career, they sold more than 15 million copies of their albums worldwide. Their 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".

The band's biggest hits were "I Feel Free" (UK number 11), "Sunshine of Your Love" (US number 5), "White Room" (US number 6),"Crossroads" (US number 28), and "Badge" (UK number 18).

The band made a significant impact on the popular music of the time, and, along with Jimi Hendrix and other notable guitarists and bands, popularised the use of the wah-wah pedal. They provided a heavy yet technically proficient musical theme that foreshadowed and influenced the emergence of British bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Jeff Beck Group, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. They also had an impact on American southern rock leading groups The Allman Brothers Band  and Lynyrd Skynyrd.  The band's live performances influenced progressive rock acts such as Rush.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. They were included in both Rolling Stone and VH1's lists of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time," at number 67 and 61 respectively. They were also ranked number 16 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock".

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White Room" is a song by British rock band Cream, composed by bassist Jack Bruce with lyrics by poet Pete Brown.  They recorded it for the studio half of the 1968 double album Wheels of Fire. In September, a shorter single edit was released for AM radio stations, although album-oriented FM radio stations played the full album version.

Recording for "White Room" reportedly began in July 1967 in London at the initial session for Cream's as-yet-unnamed third album. Work continued at Atlantic Studios in New York City in December and was completed during three sessions in February, April and June 1968, also at Atlantic.

Jack Bruce sang and played bass on the song, Eric Clapton overdubbed guitar parts, Ginger Baker played drums and timpani, and Felix Pappalardi – the group's producer – contributed violas.  Clapton played his guitar through a wah-wah pedal to achieve a "talking-effect".

[admin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeGyQIgvSV0

"Badge" is a pop rock song performed by British rock music group Cream. It was written by Eric Clapton and George Harrison. It was included as a track on Cream's final album, Goodbye. "Badge" was a minor hit in the United States, peaking at number 60 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 after its release as a single in April 1969.  The single was much more successful in the United Kingdom, where it reached position 18.

"Badge" was originally an untitled track. During the production transfer for the album Goodbye, the original music sheet was used to produce the liner notes and track listing. The only discernible word on the page was "bridge" (indicating the song's bridge section). Due to Harrison's handwriting, however, Clapton misread it as "badge" — and the song was titled soon thereafter.

Harrison remembered the story differently: "I helped Eric write "Badge" you know. Each of them had to come up with a song for that Goodbye Cream album and Eric didn't have his written. We were working across from each other and I was writing the lyrics down and we came to the middle part so I wrote 'Bridge.' Eric read it upside down and cracked up laughing-- 'What's BADGE?' he said. After that, Ringo [Starr] walked in drunk and gave us that line about the swans living in the park."

A common legend or misconception is that the name came about because its chord progression is B-A-D-G-E, or simply because an anagram of a guitar's standard tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E) can be arranged to spell "Badge". However, this is not true.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_NholHANoY

"Strange Brew" is a song released by the British rock band Cream in June 1967, from its second studio album Disraeli Gears.  The song features Eric Clapton on lead vocals rather than the usual lead by Jack Bruce. The single peaked at number 17 on the UK charts in July of that same year. The UK single release was the last Cream single to be released by Reaction Records.

After the Murray "the K" Show, Cream recorded a song called "Lawdy Mama" with Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Studios in New York. When Cream was working on the sessions for Disraeli Gears, producer Felix Pappalardi took the tape of "Lawdy Mama" and with help from his wife Gail Collins transformed the song into "Strange Brew" which according to Eric Clapton "created a pop song without completely destroying the original groove."

The song "Strange Brew" first appeared on the UK Singles Chart on 10 June 1967 at #43. It hit its highest position on 15 July at #17, and then left the charts on 5 August at #35 having spent a total of 9 weeks on the chart. The song later appeared on the soundtrack of the 1979 feature film, More American Graffiti.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt51rITH3EA

"Sunshine of Your Love" is a 1967 song by the British rock band Cream. With elements of hard rock, psychedelia, and pop, it is one of Cream's best known and most popular songs. Cream bassist and vocalist Jack Bruce based it on a distinctive bass riff, or repeated musical phrase, he developed after attending a Jimi Hendrix concert. Guitarist Eric Clapton and lyricist Pete Brown later contributed to the song. Recording engineer Tom Dowd suggested the rhythm arrangement in which drummer Ginger Baker plays a distinctive tom-tom drum rhythm, although Baker has claimed it was his idea.

The song was included on Cream's second album Disraeli Gears in November 1967, which was a best seller. Atco Records, the group's American label, was initially unsure of the song's potential. After recommendations by other label-affiliated artists, it released an edited single version in December 1967.[a] The song became Cream's first and highest charting American single and one of the most popular singles of 1968. In September 1968, it became a modest chart hit after being released in the UK.

Cream performed "Sunshine of Your Love" regularly in concert and several live recordings have been issued, including on the Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6, 2005 reunion album and video. Hendrix performed faster instrumental versions of the song, which he often dedicated to Cream. Several rock journals have placed the song on their greatest song lists, such as Rolling Stone, Q magazine, and VH1. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included it on its list of the "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".