The 1966 Cream album Eric Clapton wants to delete from history: “Really weak”
While Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were respected in their own rights before the formation of Cream, they didn’t emerge as a fully-formed band. At least, that’s according to Clapton anyway.
Admittedly, everything about their career happened at a million miles per hour, and even their naysers would admit it didn’t take them long to get up to speed. Remarkably, despite having four records to their name, they were only active for just over two years, even if their back catalogue suggests Cream’s dominance was much longer.
The combination of Clapton, Bruce and Baker was magical, which, thanks in part to clever marketing, quickly caught the attention of the general public. However, for Clapton, he didn’t see them as the finished article at this stage, despite the adulation that was being thrown his way from every direction.
Before forming Cream, Clapton had served priceless apprenticeships in the music business, putting him on the path to guitar greatness. After establishing himself in The Yardbirds, the late John Mayall took him under his wing, teaching him the tricks of the trade, before it was time to step out with Cream.
Baker and Bruce had previously played together in the Graham Bond Organisation, but endured a fractious relationship. Musically, they were aligned and spoke the same language, but off-stage was a different scenario altogether. Nevertheless, Cream were immediately a tantalising proposition.
Mere months after their formation, the trio released their first effort, Fresh Cream, on December 9th, 1966. It was also the first LP on the Reaction Records label, owned by producer and manager Robert Stigwood, who played a pivotal role in creating mythology around the group.
For a band that didn’t exist until shortly before it arrived, the album was a huge commercial and critical success, which stands up all these years later.
In the eyes of most rock fans, it’s a beautiful blend of jazz, blues, and rock that is beyond criticism. However, Clapton, a noted perfectionist, does not share that perspective.
Instead, he believed that Cream needed more time in the studio to smooth out their rough edges. Shortly after its release, when everyone in the music industry was hailing it as a masterpiece, Clapton admitted, “It could have been better. We were working on it so long ago, and we have greatly improved since then. I’m also not completely happy with the production”.
Over the years, his stance on the record hasn’t softened. When asked about Cream’s debut by Classic Rock in 2017, he shared, “Oof [mimes being winded by disappointment]. I thought the John Mayall album was better than the Cream stuff. I thought we were really weak, to be honest, on record.”
Seemingly, his criticism of their back catalogue doesn’t just relate to Fresh Cream, with Clapton admitting, “There were only a few things that I really was proud of – then and now. Most of those were on the farewell album [Goodbye, 1969]. I don’t know. I think we got lost quite quickly with Cream. It was all just smoke and mirrors.”
He also believes the ‘supergroup’ label wasn’t helpful in the long term, either, and caused a power struggle due to a lack of a defined leader, adding, “One minute it would be me, the next minute it would be Jack, the next it would be Ginger. It wasn’t cohesive. Before we got very far we became a supergroup. It was that thing of trying to catch up with your own myth.”
As Clapton says, the supergroup term wasn’t wholly accurate, but it was the catalyst for their early success and made people take notice of Fresh Cream. However, while they weren’t rookies, they also weren’t household names. Nevertheless, the groundbreaking marketing strategy made Cream one of the most talked-about acts in the country, providing a platform for everything that would soon follow.
It also meant, as much as Clapton would have liked to have had more time to work on Fresh Cream, that wasn’t possible. They needed to strike while the iron was hot and provide proof that they could talk the walk, as well as talk the talk.
They rose to the challenge with aplomb, too. Thanks to the sheer brilliance of Fresh Cream, which remains one of the most significant records of the 1960s, even their doubters had no choice but to begrudgingly accept their magnificence.
Even if they weren’t a ‘supergroup’ before the release of Fresh Cream, nobody could deny they were a supergroup after it arrived in the world, making Clapton, Bruce and Baker unquestionable stars.
As much as Clapton would have liked to have done things differently, without Fresh Cream, his career may have looked irrecognisable, and it laid the foundations for him to become a triple Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee.
