Fifty years ago, an album arrived that changed the way we hear rock music and made improvisation the test of credibility for rock bands. The album was, “Fresh Cream”. When it appeared, on December 9th, 1966, it inspired a rush of new terms, including “supergroup,” “power trio,” “jam rock,” and “drum solo.”
In ‘1966 it was all new, and all due to a band named Cream, which had formed just six months earlier. They arrived with a significant pedigree,The members from London’s early-to-mid ’60s blues and jazz scene. The bands that provided Cream’s ingredients—The Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, and the Graham Bond Organization—each had elements that suggested what the bold new band would become.
The resumes of Cream’s players, account for the first of their new catch-phrases “Supergroup”, though their previous, individual star power hardly qualified as “super.” Two of the band’s members—drummer Ginger Baker and bassist/singer Jack Bruce had far greater recognition among serious music listeners than casual pop fans. Guitarist Eric Clapton was the most renowned, for his work with both The Yardbirds and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. But because he ditched the former act before they scored their U.S. run of hits (like “For Your Love”), he had scant Stateside fame. Even so, the whole of the band added up to more than its parts, fueling enough buzz to birth the “supergroup” tag.
Fresh Cream featured originals like “N.S.U.,” “Dreaming,” and “Sweet Wine” plus American blues standards like Robert Johnson’s “Four Until Late” (sung by Clapton), Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful” and Skip James’ “I’m So Glad.” Non-LP single “I Feel Free,” added to U.S. pressings of the album, would become the group’s biggest hit single in their native U.K.,
The super deluxe Fresh Cream offers three CDs and one Blu-ray Audio with a treasure trove of extras. In addition to mono and stereo mixes of the original U.K. album, the set includes a myriad of mono single and EP material (including two ultra-rare French mono EPs), seven brand-new stereo remixes of album tracks and ten unreleased outtakes, and four complete and unedited BBC session appearances in 1966 and 1967. The Blu-ray Audio features 24/96 KHz high-resolution mixes of the U.S. album running order in stereo and mono, plus U.K. album track “Spoonful” and non-LP tracks “Wrapping Paper” and “The Coffee Song,” also in stereo and mono.
This new edition is packed in a gatefold slipcase with a 64-page hardcover book featuring liner notes written by David Fricke. (The outer slipcover features the U.K. design of the album front, while the inner package features the slightly altered U.S. cover.)
Cream’s having just three players pared the sound down far enough to provide new rhythmic, and spatial, possibilities. The spareness of the instrumentation left extra room between the players, giving the music space to swing while also highlighting the contributions of each participant. The “power trio” dynamic make it easier to isolate and appreciate each star’s technique the set-up provided a generous enough platform for each player to encourage the third and fourth terms Cream presaged—”jam-rock” and the drum solo.
From their previous jazz flirtations, Cream’s players had plenty of experience with soloing. But for the new band, they brought the full expanse of jazz jamming to the chordal structures of the blues. Solos often became the focus of the song, In the process, Cream made improvisation the test of credibility for rock bands, as well as an integral part of the song rather than a mere elaboration or time-killer. The tracks’ longer lengths allowed listeners to bore further into the music, losing themselves entirely.
The band’s expansive solos mirrored the wanderings of the blissfully altered mind. Cream’s specific approach to soloing brought to rock a new density. The musicians often solo’d at the same time, allowing Bruce’s bossy bass line to wend in one direction while Clapton’s wild guitar wandered in another. The result created as many complex and exciting interactions as messy and indulgent ones. While Clapton later denounced Cream’s “all-at-once” approach as a result of sloppiness and ego, in fact it gave the band a sense of tension and dimensionality that remains unparalleled.
Cream’s solo-centric style found its clearest expression in the drum cadenza, created by Baker for the instrumental track Toad. Ginger Baker infused his work with more freedom and complexity. After hearing “Toad,” every serious drummer in rock pined for a showcase, inspiring drum breaks ranging from the cogent (Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham in Moby Dick) to the clunky (Ron Bushy in Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida). Eventually, this led to 15 minute live smack-downs which did more to pack concert hall bathrooms than did the beer its patrons quaffed.
Cream themselves indulged “Toad” to a greater degree on their 1968, half-live double set Wheels of Fire. It boasted a sixteen minute-plus elaboration of the song, hogging an entire side. If “Wheels” found the band in full jam-band mode, “Fresh Cream” presented a more tentative, and terse, manifestation of that mission. Like many debut works, it was more about potential than fulfillment. The lengths of the songs remained clipped by the band’s later standards. Only two tracks exceeded the five minute mark. The longest, Spoonful, offered a six and a half minute riff on Willie Dixon’s blues classic, starring Clapton’s shimmering dips and dives.
Other songs seem unformed, like the meandering waltz Dreaming, the campy bauble Wrapping Paper (included on international editions) or the indifferent run at Robert Johnson’s Four Until Late.
At the same time, the album’s opening track, I Feel Free, idealized Cream’s deliverance from the bonds of their previous bands. In the process, songs like the flamboyant N.S.U., or the swaggering Sleepy Time Time, provided a blueprint for all ’60s psychedelic blues-rock bands to come. ‘Fresh Cream’ became the test-run for groups as seminal as The Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Jeff Beck Group and Led Zeppelin.
Cream itself would go on to create more fully realized works, like 1967’s Disraeli Gears, which perfected their flower-power pop side, or the aforementioned ‘Wheels of Fire,’ which captured them in their full frenzy. But before all that came ‘Fresh,’ a work which forever changed rock’s sound, configuration, vocabulary and goals.
The Fat Angel Sings 