“I don’t think about it at all”: The classic album Eric Clapton never listened to
Revisiting older material is usually the last thing that any musician wants to do. After all, music is about moving forward, and outside of wanting to create something new, it can be embarrassing trying to go back to some of one’s back pages and realise that one of the most acclaimed solos they ever played actually has glaring mistakes in it or has the wrong guitar tone. Eric Clapton never really had time to go back to any of his albums, but he especially wasn’t keen on revisiting one of Cream’s most acclaimed works.
Then again, the whole reason why Clapton wanted to break away from The Yardbirds was because he wanted to think outside the box. Playing the blues was awfully good, but when he had Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce next to him, they each worked off each other like seasoned veterans, with each of them playing something interesting every time they put together a song.
Fresh Cream had shown a band with potential, but Disraeli Gears is what made them stand out apart from the average blues act. There were pieces of psychedelia, pop, blues, and genres that didn’t seem to even have a name yet, like ‘We’re Going Wrong’ and the humorous ‘Mother’s Lament’ at the very end of the record.
Being in the studio might foster creativity, but it can also be murder for someone who wants to let loose onstage. So after making their critically acclaimed studio album that could go to bat with acts like The Beatles, it was time for them to show what they could do both as a live entity and in the studio on Wheels of Fire.
Although their third outing really isn’t the first album you should listen to as a Cream fan, it has tunes that are mandatory listening for any rock fan. ‘White Room’ is still one of the best hard rock tracks to come out of the Flower Generation, and if they ever laid down a main studio version of ‘Crossroads’, it would have been among the finest blues-rock tunes ever conceived.
But Clapton never seemed to see the magic and refused to revisit the album for years, telling MusicRadar, “I don’t think about it at all [laughs]. I certainly put that one to bed quickly! I actually have about zero tolerance for most of my old material. Especially ‘Crossroads’. The popularity of that song with Cream has always been mystifying to me. I don’t think it’s very good.”
If any other guitarist were to have made that kind of statement, they would probably be burned at the stake by every other fan for having no good taste at all. Half the reason why ‘Crossroads’ is because it sounds so chaotic, so if they decided to simply wipe it out and do another take, there would have been the correct notes but zero magic.
Still, that might have been the way that Clapton was looking at his career going forward. Listening back to what he would do on 461 Ocean Boulevard, he was far more interested in making a mellow version of rock and roll by the time Cream and Derek and the Dominoes had disbanded. That didn’t mean that the magic had gone anywhere, but it was definitely more muted than it was before.
