WhenCreammade their live debutat the Twisted Wheel in Manchesterin July 1966,the eveningbefore the 1966 World Cup finalbetween England and West Germany,nobodyused the word “supergroup”to describe this fusion of talents –Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker.Rock historiansnowrecognise thatCream were the trailblazers of a concept that wouldlead to theenormous success ofsupergroups likeCrosby, Stills, Nash& Youngand Emerson, Lake & Palmer.Of course,supergroups don’t always deliver on their promise, but Cream undoubtedly did, releasingthreeoutstanding albums of psychedelic blues–Fresh Cream, Disraeli GearsandWheels OfFire–before signing off with the posthumousGoodbye.
Cream knew they were good.That’s why they called themselves Cream.They were the cream of the crop–which isquite a statement in the fertile London scene of 1966, when you couldn’t throw a guitar pickinto the audience at the Marquee without hitting half-a-dozenbudding geniuses.Creamannounced their arrival with aBiblicalmessage from manager Robert Stigwood: “The first is last and the last is first, but the first, the second and the last are Cream. They will be called Cream.”
But who were Cream? EricClapton was thebest known of the bunch, agifted guitarist with The Yardbirds and John Mayall& TheBluesBreakersand a noted blues scholarwith a sensitive touch that distinguished him from his peers.Jack Bruce,theScottish bassist, hadbrieflyplayed with Clapton in the Blues Breakersbefore joining Manfred Mann,but was best known from his stint inone ofthescene’s most exciting,unpredictablegroups, The Graham Bond Organisation; aquartetformedaround theunrulytalent of Graham Bond,a brilliant musician but one plagued by depression and addiction.Ginger Bakerhadalsobeena member of the Graham Bond Organisation, andwasregardedas one of themostexcitingandpropulsivedrummersaround, heavily influenced by West African rhythms, if somewhat volatile.
The power of Baker and guile of Bruceprovided a unique foundation for Cream.As well as being rock’s first supergroup, Cream were one of the first power trios–the Jimi Hendrix Experience would followin short order.It was Clapton’s dream toformaleantrio after seeing Buddy Guyat the Marquee in 1965and realising the potentialof the format. “It was unbelievable,”he told Uncut in 2003. “He was in total command and I thought,‘This is it’. So yes. That’s where the idea came from. It seemed to me you could do anything with a trio – at least if you were a genius and a maestro like Buddy Guy.”
ClaptonandBakertalked aboutforming a band after Bakergavethe guitarista lift home after a Blues Breaker gig. Bakerhad had enough of Bond’s unpredictability and wanted to form the “biggest pop group of the world”. Clapton was keen, he’d been thinking along the same lines, andhad even picked the idealbassist.But his suggestion of Jack Bruce did not go down wellwith Baker. Despite having played in the same band, Baker and Brucewere not friends. The pairhadawildhistory that includedon-stagepunch-upsanddeliberatelysabotaging each other’s instruments.Baker once pulled a knife on Bruce, andeventuallyfired him from the Graham Bond Organisation– Baker claimed he was acting on behalf of the entire band, but Brucedisagreed. “He took it upon himself to fire me from Graham Bond, although he wasn’t the band leader,” he said. “He said I was playing ‘too busy’. I think I was just finding myself and a style very much influenced by James Jamerson.”
But Clapton was unequivocal: it wasBruce or nobody.Baker acquiesced and Cream were formed.Claptonrealised what he had let himself in forat one of their first rehearsalsat Baker’s home in Neasden.“We had our first talk-through rehearsal,”Claptonrecalled. “Those two had an argument right away. Jack had done an interview and let the cat out of the bag about theband. Ginger was upset about that–‘There you go, you’ve done it again!’I thought, ‘Wait, there’s something going back here that I’m not aware of…’”
Buteven if Baker and Bruce had personal issues, neither disputed the other’s talent, and the trio’s chemistry was confirmed during early rehearsals in a church hall.Andwhile the concept of a “supergroup” might have been new to rock, it would have been familiar toBruce and Baker from theirdays as jazz players.Baker had taken lessons from legendary jazz drummer Phil Seaman, while Brucebegan his career playing double bass in a variety of jazz bands.WhenGraham Bondstarted his group, it was a jazz quartet with Bond on sax and John McLaughlin on guitar.In jazz, it wasn’t uncommon forthe best individual musicians to come together ona single record, whether it’s Miles Davis,John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans and Jimmy Cobb onKind Of BlueorDuke Ellington & Coltrane.Even as Creamwereforming, Wayne ShorterreleasedSpeak No Evil, featuringa line-up of Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter and Elvin Jones – a supergroup in all but name.
Infact, the first time the word “supergroup” was applied to a rock band, it was to describe the combination ofAl Kooper, Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stillsfortheir 1968 albumSuperSessions–a session explicitly modelled on the jazz tradition of puttinga bunch ofexceptional musicians in one studio andleavingthemtojam.And it was thatsameschooling in jazz that allowed Cream to become such a revelatory group, withClapton, Bruce and Baker combining their improvisationalskillwith a zest for sheer power and volume.
Perhaps the oddest thing about Cream turned out to bethe fact that the bandleader wasn’t Clapton, as everybody anticipated, but Jack Bruce, who wrote the band’s first two singles – “Wrapping Paper” and “I Feel Free” – assuming lead vocals.When Clapton looked back in 1997, hestillseemed bewildered.“My overall feeling about it now is that it was a glorious mistake,” he said.“I had a completely different idea of what it would be before I started it, and it ended up being a wonderful thing, but nothing like it was meant to be.It was meant to be a blues trio. I just didn’t have the assertiveness to take control. Jack and Ginger were the powerful, dominant personalities in the band; they sort of ran the show and I just played. In the end, I just went with the flow and I enjoyed it greatly, but it wasn’t anything like I expected at all.”