Eric Clapton

Cream were the first Super-Group. Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce were all acknowledged leading experts in their own field.

Eric had established himself as the foremost White blues guitarist of his generation. He’d started out as a young kid with the Yardbirds doing R&B and Blues material with a speeded up White British style. He’d moved on to John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in order to get into a more authentic Chicago style which is when his supreme talent was dribbled over.

Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker both were inspired by the Jazz side of music. They came into the band from Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated and then the break-off band of Graham Bond.

All of them were a bit disillusioned and excited by the idea of forming a Blues-based power trio. They’d jammed together and found that they could really hit it off musically. The problems were all off-stage. Jack and Ginger were volatile individuals with a long history of falling out, fist fights and even knives!

I’m not sure that Eric knew quite what he was walking into. But the end result was worth all the aggro.

Cream started off adapting the standard Blues classics by Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf and Skip James and giving them a bit of electrical twist. They soon found that their Jazz background enabled them to improvise wildly. It was as if something had been unleashed. The result went off like a dose of TNT. They all fed off it and it surged forward to create one of the most exciting acts around.

The next ingredient came from the British Beat poet Pete Brown. He teamed up with Jack Bruce to create a surreal type of lyric and music that took the band into a different dimension.

Following the first bluesy album the second ‘Disraeli Gears’ hit the crest of the psychedelic wave and took it up a notch. It was another of those magic albums that came out that year. It was ass if some magic dust had been sprinkled through the atmosphere and had sparked off a creative epidemic.

Eric, inspired and frightened by the formidable explosiveness and primal force of Jimi Hendrix was driven to new heights. Cream became astounding.

Each one of them contributed their full measure of brilliance. Ginger’s drumming was spellbinding. We’d all got used to sitting through those interminable tedious, self-indulgent solos where the band would all walk off-stage for a fag and a pint while the drummer sweated and pounded away. It wasn’t like that with Ginger though. His drumming was so amazing it was scintillating. It left you short of breath at its sheer magnificence. I remember one session where he had a drum-off with Phil Seaman. The two of them did a master-class that got the crowd howling for more.

Jack’s bass playing was equally extraordinary. He’d started out with an upright bass when playing with Alexis Korner but had mastered the more portable electric bass. Ginger always complained that Jack deliberately turned the amps right up which was responsible for blowing out his ears and the development of his tinnitus. I don’t know about that. I think there would always have been something. All I knew was that it sounded great. He was also the singer who gave voice to all those incredible lyrics of Willie Dixon and Pete Brown. That was the voice of Cream; almost the best band in the world.

At this point in time Eric was on fire. His scorching guitar was demonic. He surged with those complex riffs and intricate fills and runs that were constructed like jig-saw puzzles. They sent the hair on your neck stand up and blew the hair on your face off. I’ve never heard him play in such a free and unrestricted manner before or since. For me this was undoubtedly his apotheosis. He never came near it again despite whatever technical improvements he might have made. It all sounded contrived and soulless like it was merely cabaret or muzac. Cream was the essential Eric. All the other incarnations are pale by comparison.

According to Eric the band had reached its expiry date. The solos and improvisations had become predictable and there was nowhere else to go. It had become boring.

It sure did not sound like that to me.

The band stormed right up to its demise.

I am sure that the real reason was the huge pressure of too much touring. Having three huge personalities crammed together, particularly with the acrimony between Jack and Ginger, was a recipe for a punch-up.

I don’t think Eric was as beguiled by the music that The Band were laying down on their album ‘Music from Big Pink’ as he subsequently made out. It was merely another small element. I think he just needed a break from all the relentless pressure and tension.

All the Blindfaith, Delaney and Bonnie, Derek & the Dominoes and his solo carrer was a holiday break. The descent into heroin vacuity says it all.

The trouble was that Eric never really got back. The reunions were much too late and felt a bit contrived. The spark and creativity was missing. You couldn’t relearn it. You had to feel it and want it and that time had passed and could not be summoned back.

Eric plodded through his cabaret years with excursions into Hari-land.

Cream left us with a pitifully short period of absolute magnificence but a legacy that shines cdown the decades. The quality exceeded all expectations. If ever a band was accurately named it was CREAM.