Cream 1969 Goodbye

Genre: Rock
Rate: 320 kbps CBR / 44100
Time: 00:33:15
Size: 76,10 MB

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

After a mere three albums in just under three years, Cream called it quits in 1969. Being proper gentlemen, they said their formal goodbyes with a tour and a farewell album called -- what else? -- Goodbye. As a slim, six-song single LP, it's far shorter than the rambling, out-of-control Wheels of Fire, but it boasts the same structure, evenly dividing its time between tracks cut on-stage and in the studio.

While the live side contains nothing as indelible as "Crossroads," the live music on the whole is better than that on Wheels of Fire, capturing the trio at an empathetic peak as a band. It's hard, heavy rock, with Cream digging deep into their original "Politician" with the same intensity as they do on "Sitting on Top of the World," but it's the rampaging "I'm So Glad" that illustrates how far they've come; compare it to the original studio version on Fresh Cream and it's easy to see just how much further they're stretching their improvisation.

The studio side also finds them at something of a peak. Boasting a song apiece from each member, it opens with the majestic classic "Badge," co-written by Eric Clapton and George Harrison and ranking among both of their best work. It's followed by Jack Bruce's "Doing That Scrapyard Thing," an overstuffed near-masterpiece filled with wonderful, imaginative eccentricities, and finally, there's Ginger Baker's tense, dramatic "What a Bringdown," easily the best original he contributed to the group. Like all of Cream's albums outside Disraeli Gears, Goodbye is an album of moments, not a tight cohesive work, but those moments are all quite strong on their own terms, making this a good and appropriate final bow.


Tracklist:

01 - I'm So Glad [Live] 09:11

02 - Politician [Live] 06:18

03 - Sitting On Top Of The World [Live] 05:07

04 - Badge 02:48

05 - Doing That Scrapyard Thing 03:19

06 - What A Bringdown 03:56

07 - Anyone For Tennis 02:36




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Cream 1967 Ricky Tick

Genre: Rock
Rate: 320 kbps CBR / 44100
Time: 01:05:32
Size: 149,95 MB

Biography by Richie Unterberger

Although Cream was only together for a little more than two years, their influence was immense, both during their late-'60s peak and in the years following their breakup. Cream was the first top group to truly exploit the power-trio format, in the process laying the foundation for much blues-rock and hard rock of the 1960s and 1970s. It was with Cream, too, that guitarist Eric Clapton truly became an international superstar. Critical revisionists have tagged the band as overrated, citing the musicians' emphasis upon flash, virtuosity, and showmanship at the expense of taste and focus. This was sometimes true of their live shows in particular, but in reality the best of their studio recordings were excellent fusions of blues, pop, and psychedelia, with concise original material outnumbering the bloated blues jams and overlong solos.

Cream could be viewed as the first rock supergroup to become superstars, although none of the three members were that well-known when the band formed in mid-1966. Eric Clapton had the biggest reputation, having established himself as a guitar hero first with the Yardbirds, and then in a more blues-intensive environment with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. (In the States, however, he was all but unknown, having left the Yardbirds before "For Your Love" made the American Top Ten.) Bassist/singer Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker had both been in the Graham Bond Organisation, an underrated British R&B combo that drew extensively upon the jazz backgrounds of the musicians. Bruce had also been, very briefly, a member of the Bluesbreakers along Clapton, and also briefly a member of Manfred Mann when he became especially eager to pay the rent.

All three of the musicians yearned to break free of the confines of the standard rock/R&B/blues group, in a unit that would allow them greater instrumental and improvisational freedom, somewhat in the mold of a jazz outfit. Eric Clapton's stunning guitar solos would get much of the adulation, yet Bruce was at least as responsible for shaping the group's sound, singing most of the material in his rich voice. He also wrote their best original compositions, sometimes in collaboration with outside lyricist Pete Brown.


Tracklist:

01 - Sunshine Of Your Love 04:43

02 - Hey Lawdy Mama 03:29

03 - Sweet Wine 05:05

04 - Rollin' & Tumblin' 06:01

05 - Spoonful 07:43

06 - Sitting On Top Of The World 04:23

07 - Toad 09:34

08 - Hey Lawdy Mama 02:51

09 - Meet Me In The Bottom 04:33

10 - Crossroads 03:32

11 - Steping Out 05:02

12 - Got My Mojo Working (Yardbirds, Sdg, Steampacket-1964) 05:42

13 - Louise (Yardbirds - 1964) 02:54




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Cream 1970 Live Cream

Genre: Rock
Rate: 320 kbps CBR / 44100
Time: 00:41:53
Size: 95,90 MB


Review by Rob Bowman & Bruce Eder

Cream was a band born to the stage, a fact that the band and their record label realized the public fully understood by the number one U.S. chart placement for Wheels of Fire, with its entire live disc, and the number two chart peak for Goodbye, the posthumous release that was dominated by concert recordings. And in response to those success, we got Live Cream, Vol. 1 (originally known simply as Live Cream) in the spring of 1970, nearly 18 months after the trio's breakup. This could well be their most consistently brilliant album for sheer musicianship, though it is also a peculiar one on a couple of counts, some of which probably prevented it from reaching quite as wide an audience as it might have otherwise. Released in April 1970 and derived from tapes made at three May 1968 California shows, all of the live tracks here consist of songs originally featured on the group's least ambitious and most rudimentary album, Fresh Cream, dating from 1966 - and as it happens, there's not a hit represented among the five songs, a fact that probably made this release seem more appealing to hardcore fans than to casual and curious listeners (who didn't know what they were missing).

The performances here show how far the group had come in the nearly two years since laying down the studio originals - take side one of the original LP, where they stretch out their playing, as well as boost it to new levels of intensity, on "N.S.U." and "Sleepy Time Time," so that the renditions here are the definitive ones, and by themselves should have made this album an essential acquisition back in 1970. But that brings us to the original side two and the 15-minute rendition of "Sweet Wine," an excursion by all three players that is worth the quarter-hour time commitment of the listener. The live portion of the album ends with their searing, rollicking high energy rendition of Muddy Waters' "Rollin' and Tumblin'." And then, for reasons not clear - except perhaps simply that it was there, in the vaults, and seemed like a valuable piece of property, which it was (and what else were they going to do with it?) - the producers close Live Cream with a studio cut, "Lawdy Mama," an Eric Clapton-inspired take on a traditional tune that subsequently evolved into the hit "Strange Brew" during what became the Disraeli Gears sessions.

It's not a match for everything we've heard, but in the spring of 1970 no one was exactly complaining over being handed a previously unissued studio track by the Cream, as a bonus to the concert performances here. As it turned out, there were more live tracks from some of these same shows to draw on in future releases and reissues, which would include a couple of the group's hits; but Live Cream offers the overall highest quality, both in terms of clarity and fidelity, and the performances, which, in addition to the essential great playing (better in some ways than what was heard on some of the much-vaunted live tracks from Wheels of Fire), include excellent vocalizing by Clapton and Jack Bruce. Not that vocalizing looms that large here - the live tracks are all given extended jazz-based treatment, and the dialog among the three musicians as the jams develop is fascinating. Foreground and background seem to dissolve as all three musicians take charge, using the full range of their instruments. And where Bruce goes with his bass, especially on "Sweet Wine," is every bit as rewarding as the places that Clapton's guitar takes us; and Ginger Baker's playing is a trip all its own. Performances like this single-handedly raised the stakes of musicianship in rock.



Tracklist:


01 - N.S.U. 10:18

02 - Sleepy Time Time 06:47

03 - Sweet Wine 15:19

04 - Rollin' And Tumblin' 06:42

05 - Lawdy Mama 02:47



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Cream 1968 Wheels Of Fire

Genre: Rock
Rate: 320 kbps CBR / 44100
Time: 01:19:56
Size: 182,96 MB


Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

If Disraeli Gears was the album where Cream came into their own, its successor, Wheels of Fire, finds the trio in full fight, capturing every side of their multi-faceted personality, even hinting at the internal pressures that soon would tear the band asunder. A dense, unwieldy double album split into an LP of new studio material and an LP of live material, it's sprawling and scattered, at once awesome in its achievement and maddening in how it falls just short of greatness. It misses its goal not because one LP works and the other doesn't, but because both the live and studio sets suffer from strikingly similar flaws, deriving from the constant power struggle between the trio.

Of the three, Ginger Baker comes up short, contributing the passable "Passing the Time" and "Those Were the Days," which are overshadowed by how he extends his solo drum showcase "Toad" to a numbing quarter of an hour and trips upon the Wind & the Willows whimsy of "Pressed Rat and Warthog," whose studied eccentricity pales next to Eric Clapton's nimble, eerily cheerful "Anyone for Tennis." In almost every regard, Wheels of Fire is a terrific showcase for Clapton as a guitarist, especially on the first side of the live album with "Crossroads," a mighty encapsulation of all of his strengths. Some of that is studio trickery, as producer Felix Pappalardi cut together the best bits of a winding improvisation to a tight four minutes, giving this track a relentless momentum that's exceptionally exciting, but there's no denying that Clapton is at a peak here, whether he's tearing off solos on a 17-minute "Spoonful" or goosing "White Room" toward the heights of madness. But it's the architect of "White Room," bassist Jack Bruce, who, along with his collaborator Peter Brown, reaches a peak as a songwriter. Aside from the monumental "White Room," he has the lovely, wistful "As You Said," the cinematic "Deserted Cities of the Heart," and the slow, cynical blues "Politician," all among Cream's very best work.

And in many ways Wheels of Fire is indeed filled with Cream's very best work, since it also captures the fury and invention (and indulgence) of the band at its peak on the stage and in the studio, but as it tries to find a delicate balance between these three titanic egos, it doesn't quite add up to something greater than the sum of its parts. But taken alone, those individual parts are often quite tremendous.


Tracklist:


CD1:

01 - White Room 04:56

02 - Sitting On Top Of The World 04:57

03 - Passing The Time 04:30

04 - As You Said 04:18

05 - Pressed Rat And Warthog 03:12

06 - Politician 04:11

07 - Those Were The Days 02:54

08 - Born Under A Bad Sign 03:08

09 - Deserted Cities Of The Heart 03:37


CD2:

01 - Crossroads 04:14

02 - Spoonful 16:43

03 - Traintime 07:01

04 - Toad 16:15



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