Year released: 2003 (contains recordings that date from between 1966-1968)Personnel: Jack Bruce (bass, harmonica, vocals); Eric Clapton (guitar, vocals); Ginger Baker (drums, vocals)
We close the chapter on the Cream story with this nice collection of tunes recorded for the British Broadcasting Corporation. A nice complement to the original studio albums. Reviews are from the Beeb and of course, allmusic.
There's a lesson to be learned by the likes of Spiritualized, Lambchop and the Polyphonic Spree here. With Cream less really was more. Who needs three bassists and a marimba player when you can make as sophisticated and joyous a noise with just three musicians? Even the power blues of Led Zeppelin (who surely would never have existed without Eric, Jack and Ginger paving the way) needed four members. And one of them was a multi-instrumentalist. Never before or since has so much volume been made for so many by so few. And that includes the White Stripes.
That's not to say that this is all sturm und drang. The whole secret of Cream's success was their ability to progress from Chicago blues to psychedelia and beyond with a jazzy sophistication. This was due to a seasoned rhythm section that a young Eric Clapton had lacked to support his extended (and extending) soloing in previous bands like the Yardbirds or John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. This album collects and polishes up Cream's BBC sessions - all part and parcel of a standard band's career during the 60s.
While most numbers are mono mixes the skill and sense of a band evolving in double quick time dispel any audio grumbles. Listen as Clapton's guitar style passes through a lysergic filter to move between old standards from his Bluesbreaker days, like Freddie King's ''Steppin Out'', to the wobbly wah-wah tones of ''Tales Of Brave Ulysses''. As EC's guitar gets looser Jack Bruce's vocals get more angelic and Ginger Baker's drums get, err...louder. To top this you get the shockingly youthful tones of Brian Matthew appealing to the 'groovy, tuned-in, turned-on, way out fans' and getting some remarkably ego-free interviews from EC himself.
The fact that the BBC forced the band to curtail any excessive soloing comes as a blessing for those familiar with the longeurs of Wheels Of Fire. Ginger still does his falling-down-stairs impersonation, but it's the succinct, poppy nature of tracks like ''I Feel Free'' and ''Strange Brew'' that forces Clapton to give us guitar work that he's rarely bettered since.
Strangely, this historical overview highlights how their major musical touchstone, the blues, was to eventually lead them astray. Post-Disraeli Gears their muse (tainted by bad blood and too much touring) lapsed into bloated twelve bar behemoths such as ''Politician''. Could Free and Black Sabbath be far behind? Yet even these lows surpass most other contemporaries' best efforts. If you never shelled out for the marvellous 4 cd set, Those Were The Days, here's a handy alternative career overview that'll leave you smiling.
This compilation of 22 Cream BBC tracks from 1966-1968 marked a major addition to the group's discography, particularly as they released relatively little product during their actual lifetime. All of but two of these cuts ("Lawdy Mama" and the 1968 version of "Steppin' Out," which had appeared on Eric Clapton's "Crossroads" box) were previously unreleased, and although many of these had made the round on bootlegs, the sound and presentation here is unsurprisingly preferable.
As for actual surprises, there aren't many. It's a good cross section of songs from their studio records, though a couple, "Steppin' Out" and "Traintime," only appeared on live releases, and some of these BBC takes actually predate the release and recording of the album versions, which makes them of historical interest for intense Cream fans. (There are also four brief interviews with Eric Clapton from the original broadcasts.)
There's a mild surprise in the absence of a version of "White Room," but otherwise many of the group's better compositions and covers are here, including "I Feel Free," "N.S.U.," "Strange Brew," "Tales of Brave Ulysses," "Sunshine of Your Love," "Born Under a Bad Sign," "Outside Woman Blues," "Crossroads," "We're Going Wrong," "I'm So Glad," "SWLABR," and "Politician."
Cream took better advantage of the live-in-the-studio BBC format than some groups of similar stature. There's a lean urgency to most of the performances that, while not necessarily superior to the more fully realized and polished studio renditions, do vary notably in ambience from the more familiar versions. The sound quality is good but not perfect, and variable; sometimes it's excellent, yet at other times there seem to be imperfections in the tapes sourced, with "Sunshine of Your Love" suffering from a (not grievously) hollow, muffled quality.
If there's any other slight criticism of this set, it's that a handful of BBC tracks don't appear, including some that don't make it onto this CD in any version, like "Sleepy Time Time," "Toad," and "Sitting on Top of the World." Given Cream's tendency to over-improvise on the band's live concert recordings, however, the concise nature of these BBC tracks (none of which exceed five minutes) makes them preferable listening in some respects.
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