The band Eric Clapton wanted to leave Cream to join
The fact that Cream stuck around for only a handful of years sounds like a minor miracle. Considering the amount of infighting behind the scenes, it felt like the band would end with a few bruises and bloody noses by the time everyone had said their piece. While Eric Clapton was always bound for bigger and better things in his solo career, he almost got in tune with the rootsy sounds of Bob Dylan’s band before his supergroup had even dissolved.
Then again, the entire genesis of Cream came from Clapton wanting to move away from his bluesy foundations. He had always admired the sounds emanating from the British blues scene, but their decision to go pop with songs like ‘For Your Love’ didn’t sit well with ‘Slowhand’ at all, wanting to expand even further rather than making music for the masses.
Assembling Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker from the Graham Bond Organisation, the mindset behind Cream was to make an amalgamation of different genres. One song might be blues, one pop, one psychedelic freakout, but it didn’t matter as long as every member was pushing each other to create something different.
While Fresh Cream and Disraeli Gears became perfect slices of psychedelia for the ‘Summer of Love’, Clapton wasn’t confined to the band, either. During the sessions for The Beatles’ White Album, Clapton would feature on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, even convincing George Harrison to write Cream their hit, ‘Badge’.
Across the world in America, Bob Dylan had started to break free from his folk-rock sounds of Blonde on Blonde. After spending years as his backing band, The Band, then known as the Hawks, would find their voice on their own, making songs that were indebted to the sounds of Americana, like on ‘The Weight’ and their take on ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’.
By the time those strains of American music hit Clapton, he wasn’t just ready for a change of pace. Instead of infusing that into his own playing, the guitarist said that he would have happily given the boot to Bruce and Baker in favour of playing alongside Robbie Robertson on their next album.
When inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Clapton explained just how much that music spoke to him, saying, “This band that I was listening to seemed to have it all. For me, it was serious, it was grown up, and it was mature. It had economy and beauty, and I wanted to be in The Band. So, I went and told Jack and Ginger that I couldn’t go anymore. There was something else going on that I needed to bow out of”.
Clapton wasn’t the only one smitten by the group’s musical sensibilities. If you look at Harrison’s debut album, All Things Must Pass, half of his material is derived from what The Band were doing, from the poignancy of their ballads to the unique understanding of American instruments like the pedal-steel guitar and the banjo.
Although he had to wait his sweet time getting there, Clapton would eventually get his wish when performing with the group at The Last Waltz, coming on for a handful of songs and getting to trade licks with Robertson. If Cream had dissolved a few years earlier, there’s no telling whether the quintessential Americana band could have had a resident Brit in their ranks.
