Stimulating sounds: "Disraeli Gears" by Cream

Year released: 1967
Personnel: Jack Bruce (bass, lead and backing vocals, harmonica, keyboard); Eric Clapton (guitars, lead and backing vocals); Ginger Baker (drums, lead and backing vocals)

Cream's masterpiece, the perfect synthesis of their bluesy and psychedelic inclinations. Two reviews here first from the BBC and the second from allmusic.

It started as a joke. Mick Turner one of Cream’s roadies was discussing with drummer, Ginger Baker, how he fancied one of those bikes with’ Disraeli gears’. He meant, of course, derailleur gears, but the band found the mistake hilarious and so the name of one of one of the UK’s premier psychedelic albums was born.

By 1967 Cream had had one rather false start. "Fresh Cream," their first album had been a rushed and rather too purist collection of blues standards and curios, and as such was already by 1966 considered out of step with what was occurring around them. “I Feel Free” had hinted at the wild lysergic undercurrent, but they’d yet to find their heartland in the London underground. One reason this had happened was because of the band’s backgrounds, not only in the blues (as Eric Clapton defected from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers) but also in Jazz; both Jack Bruce and Baker having served time with Graham Bond. Luckily this wide-ranging set of backgrounds was invaluable in their next step.

Second time around it was far different. Chemicals had been imbibed, Clapton had struck up a friendship with Australian artist Martin Sharp who not only provided the lyrics of “Tales Of Brave Ulysses” but also came up with the splendidly baroque cover. Meanwhile Jack Bruce was now working with underground poet, Pete Brown, whose lyrics were equally trippy. “SWLABR” (it stands for ‘She walks like a bearded rainbow’), “Dance The Night Away” and “Sunshine Of Your Love” were perfect encapsulations of the point where the blues got psychedelic and in turn got heavy. “Sunshine…”’s riff is at once iconic and defines the power trio aesthetic that was to prove so popular with the band’s many disciples.

The other creative catalyst was producer Felix Pappalardi. Co-writing both "World Of Pain" he also helped transform the blueswailing “Lawdy Mama” into the slinky “Strange Brew” – a contender for best album opener of all time. Clapton’s guitar had by now been exposed to the effects heavy stylings of Jimi Hendrix and his heavy use of wah-wah gives Disraeli Gears just the right amount of weirdness, making this probably the most experimental album he ever made. The modish inclusion of Ginger Baker’s rendition of “A Mother’s lament” was the edwardiana icing on the cake. By the band’s demise, two years later Clapton had returned to his first love – straight blues and the band had become the barnstorming power trio hinted at here. For a short time they were bringers of peace and love.

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 schoolboy singalong "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.