Bloggerhythms

The Very Best Of Cream is the most inclusive, single disc compilation the psychedelic, blues-rock trio, Cream, has ever released. Earlier greatest hits collections were issued on LPs and contained only ten or twelve tracks, but this CD has twenty and would easily fill two 33 1/3 RPM records. When the renowned supergroup was at their best few rock bands of any era could top them. Eric Clapton (guitar), Jack Bruce (bass), and drummer Ginger Baker were all virtuosos, and Bruce's excellent singing was a large heap of icing on the cake. Cream played together for less than two years, but within that short span they released four LPs containing new studio material that included in-concert tracks on their last two albums, Wheels Of Fire and Goodbye . Some of their stuff was overblown such as Baker's live, almost sixteen minute drum solo on "Toad," and there were goofy, seemingly nonsensical songs l...

Cream was another victim of the infighting and creative differences that frequently plague and bring an end to many renowned bands, yet Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker managed to go out the way they began - by playing virtuosic rock that is still listenable today. Cream's last record, Goodbye , is brief by their standards. It clocks in at just over thirty minutes and to their credit it lacks the excessively long jams that were the trio's specialty and sometimes their Achilles heal. There are no side-long, fifteen minute drum solos, like Baker's "Toad," that will either bore or annoy you. The three live tracks from side one show the group to be at their blues-rock best with all three of them playing stupendous stuff. Clapton is his usual God-like self, but the real star is Bruce whose bass work is so dazzling that he proves to be more than a supporting player. On the 9:12, live take of "I'm So Glad" he's in the forefront as much as Clapt...

" Badge" is one of Cream's most famous songs even though it never got higher than #60 on the Billboard Hot 100. All these years later it's still played on both classic rock and oldies radio stations. In Cream's homeland it climbed all the way to #18.  The short single (2:35) appeared on the power trio's final LP, Goodbye , in 1969 and was written by Eric Clapton with one of his best buddies, George Harrison, partially as repayment for the blues-rocker's assistance on The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." "Badge" was originally untitled on the original sheet music. Harrison had written the word "bridge" indicating that is where the midsection of the song belonged. Looking at the sheet music upside down, Clapton misread it as "badge" because of Harrison's handwriting. Here is how The former Beatle remembers it happening as quoted in Wikipedia. " I helped Eric write "Badge" you know. Each o...

In 2005 Cream, the legendary blues power trio, played four shows together for the first time in almost 40 years at London's equally legendary concert hall. Unfortunately, in this group's case, absence did not make the heart grow fonder. Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker managed to make most of the songs from their classic repertoire sound indistinguishable from one another and the length of this double CD set made listening to the whole affair even more tedious than it needed to be. Surprisingly, Clapton played with no fire. His solos were all by rote and sounded identical. We all know that "God" still has the goods but not during the week he played with Bruce and Baker. Bruce can no longer hit the high notes and Clapton's still fine voice was forced to save him on numerous occasions. Baker's drum work often included fills that were identical to how they were recorded on the studio originals. In fact, the concert promoters could have taken...