Cream have long been one of my all time favourite bands and in their short time together they released four studio albums with two containing live tracks. So just like a previous OPINION PIECE article where I ranked Beatles album, I thought I’d do the same with Cream. It’s important to mention that the ranking is my opinion only. Let me know your thoughts.
Jack Bruce has long been one of my all time favourite bassists due to his work with Cream but I’m ashamed to say that aside from his 1969 solo album Songs For A Tailor, I’m not overly familiar with the rest of his solo career. However that changed after hearing this excellent recording of a show he played at Fillmore East in New York with Jack Bruce & Friends, which includes Mitch Mitchell on drums, Larry Coryell on guitar and Mike Mandell on organ. The band only played seventeen dates together between the 24th January and 1st March 1970 and sadly there are less than a handful of live recordings of them. Thankfully, however, this late show recording from the 31st January is one of them.
For the 20th instalment of my BOOTLEG SERIES I return to one of my favourite bands of all time, Cream, a band who have been the focus of four previous instalments in this series. This show at New Haven Arena in New Havan, CT from the 11th October 1968 is one of the farewell shows the band played on their last tour of the United States and unlike many recordings from this tour, the band appear to be just getting through the show. That said there are countless great moments on each song and they’re enjoyable to listen to.
50 years ago today (9th December 1966), Cream released their debut album Fresh Cream. It may not be their most accomplished album but in my eyes it’s still a landmark album that defined a new era of blues music. Unlike their later albums, Fresh Cream doesn’t include any songs that would define a generation but what we have is a superb blues record, blended with aspects of rock which equals one of the best albums form the mid-60’s.
For a new series of articles I pick my top five favourite albums from each decade from the 1960’s onwards. Starting with the 1960’s is exciting because it’s my favourite decade for music and it was going to be tough trying to narrow down my selection to only five albums. After careful consideration I was able to do it with the following five albums making the cut.
1969 saw the formation of one of rocks most underrated and under-appreciated supergroups in the form of Blind Faith. Formed by Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood initially, bassist Ric Grech and drummer Ginger Baker would join a little later and the outcome of this musical melding of minds was their self titled album, Blind Faith, released in August 1969.
