The Cream album Eric Clapton wants to delete from history: “I thought we were really weak”
During their short tenure together, Cream took the world by storm and became much more significant than they ever envisaged. Their two-year dominance oversaw the release of four acclaimed studio albums, placing the names of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker in the rock ‘n’ roll history books.
While there have been plentiful suggestions that Cream was the world’s first supergroup, all three members were relatively unknown to the masses before the group’s explosion onto the scene. They were all aficionados of the blues, who played their instruments with the vigour of a virtuoso, and unsurprisingly, it quickly captured the attention of music lovers across the globe.
Before forming Cream, Clapton had served apprenticeships in the music business, putting him on the path to guitar greatness. The late John Mayall took him under his wing, teaching him the tricks of the trade and allowing him the keys to his prized record collection. Following Mayall’s passing, Clapton said of his friend: “I learned all that I really have to draw on today in terms of technique and desire to play the kind of music I love to play. I did all my research in his home, in his record collection, for the Chicago blues that he was such an expert on.”
Although Clapton had previously served in The Yardbirds, his time in The Bluesbreakers made him the guitarist he is today. Nevertheless, despite the prestige he built up around his name, Clapton later confessed his befuddlement surrounding the success of Cream. Before forming the band, 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 that’s where their similarities end.
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. The album was immediately a commercial and critical success. As the years have passed, it has cemented its reputation as one of the most important rock albums of all time.
Only a few individuals would dare say a bad word about Fresh Cream, but surprisingly, Clapton is among its naysayers. The LP is a beautiful blend of jazz, blues, and rock, which put Cream on the path to superstardom. However, Clapton, a noted perfectionist, believed that the band needed more time in the studio to smooth out the 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. 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.”
Clapton then expressed his opinion on why it fell apart so rapidly, adding, “We were just trying to keep the thing rolling. We didn’t really have a leader. I think that was part of the problem. The leadership would change in the blink of an eye. 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. While they had more experience than most new acts, they weren’t household names. Nevertheless, their manager used their backgrounds to his advantage by playing up to the concept. This groundbreaking strategy made the whole industry sit up and take notice. Before they knew it, Cream had become one of the most talked-about acts in the country, which meant that almost anything they produced would be lauded.
“I don’t really take it too seriously,” Clapton said about the so-called myth. “I think it’s interesting at best, but I’ve lived on the other side of that. I must admit, I’m guilty of doing it, too, so I have to be fairly non-judgmental about it because I mythologise myself, as I have done with Robert Johnson. I’ve never really subscribed to that particular myth about him selling his soul, but there’s something akin to that in… not selling your soul, but just devoting yourself to something. That could be a better explanation for all of these things.”
Even if Clapton isn’t the world’s biggest fan of Fresh Cream, it remains one of the most significant records of the 1960s. While Cream viewed themselves as more of a live band than a studio outfit, it firmly placed them on the map.
However, there’s also no denying that Stigwood’s genius marketing mind played a significant part in its success. The term ‘supergroup’ was unheard of in the music industry, and it made everyone intrigued to listen to Fresh Cream. Although Clapton feels the album could have been more refined, the quality of the LP ensured that listeners’ high expectations were met, and Cream proved themselves to be the real deal.
