Introduction

By Chris Welch
Extract from Cream: The Legendary Sixties Supergroup
Amended Friday, 08 April 2005

:: Read

The Formation

By Chris Welch
Extract from Cream: Strange Brew
Amended Friday, 08 April 2005

:: Read

The Players

By Chris Welch
Extract from Cream: Strange Brew
Amended Friday, 08 April 2005

:: Ginger Baker
:: Jack Bruce
:: Eric Clapton

The Farewell

By Chris Welch
Extract from Cream: Strange Brew
Amended Friday, 08 April 2005

While rumours about discontent began to surface in the press the band carried on with their touring commitments. They were earning up to $60,000 a night where once they had only been paid #45 for a gig. The formerly starving musos certainly enjoyed the influx of riches. Says Jack: "We had done very well and suddenly we could buy a couple of houses and a Ferrari. It was very hard to take in. We went from getting a couple of pounds from playing the Flamingo Club to getting massive royalties from Platinum albums. It was a wonderful time really!"

Despite their good fortune and their huge and growing popularity, the decision was finally made to break up in May, 1968 when they were still only half way through their marathon US tour. The news was made public with an official statement from their management in July when it was announced they would make a farewell tour of America. There would be only two concerts in London in November. They would play at the Royal Albert Hall, and BBC documentary maker Tony Palmer would film the shows for the Omnibus arts programme. Eric tried to explain that although the band has been a thrill, the band had just run out of steam. "You can't be that inspired for that long." There was an outpouring of criticism from disappointed British fans, but it was too late for the band to change their minds.

Eric describes the final days of Cream as a painful period, which he tried to blot out. "I went under and blamed everybody."

Jack Bruce now feels Cream should have played more countries and more dates in Britain. "We should have played in Japan and Australia but we only really did the States. It was quite a tragedy really."

The band played 14 major US cities including Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas and Boston, earning an average of $25,000 a night. On November 1 they played the Spectrum. Philadelphia and on November 2 came a special show at Madison Square Garden, New York in front of 22,000 strong audience.

Jack: "Wheels Of Fire had been a huge hit and it was the first double album to sell a million and it became a Platinum disc. Ahmet Ertegun and Robert Stigwood presented it to us at Madison Square. It was a very strange gig on a revolving stage, which must have been horrible for the audience. They'd get a glimpse of the drums, guitar and bass and then they'd all go away again."

Bruce puts this among his list of 'bizarre gigs' that includes one at Streatham Ice Rink in London where the crowd was still skating and the Locarno Glasgow, where the band stepped out from another revolving stage "to a very small audience."

It was during this trip to Scotland that they visited Inverness and on an afternoon off, Jack suggested they all try to climb Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain. They met a Scottish piper on their hike through the glens and rarely was there a more fascinating photo opportunity, as the piper engaged Eric, Jack and Ginger clad in their finest Chelsea attire, in animated conversation. They capped a pleasantly surreal situation by running down the slopes of the mountain whilst tripping on acid. Jack remembers that it was very easy to start running, but impossible to stop. These were the fun times, when Cream was still enjoying each other's company. Eric described this at the peak time for the band. "That was the high point for me, we were so together and loved one another so much."

Jack: "We did just one farewell tour and when we to got the Royal Albert Hall for the last gig, the reaction was so great, we looked at each other and thought 'Are we doing the right thing?' There was a feeling of regret but nobody was able to step forward and say 'Oh, let's not do this!'"

Cream played their last show in America in Baltimore on November 4. Then on November 25 and 26, 1968 that the band played two shows at London's Royal Albert Hall supported by Yes and Taste. The band seemed surprised at the emotional send off they received from some 5,000 fans each night. "I didn't think anyone would remember us," said Eric.

The end of Cream was a blow for the founder member. Recalls Ginger Baker: "When we decided to finish the band and I told Stigwood—I don't think he believed us. Then we did 'Goodbye Cream' and the farewell tour. Our last gig at the Royal Albert Hall in London wasn't very good. I don't think it was. And Tony Palmer's film of the show for the BBC was appalling! Eric would never speak to Tony Palmer again after that. We'd be playing a number and all of a sudden we were wearing different clothes. He'd cut scenes from one show and put them into another. It was unbelievable. And all those zoom shots were very silly. It's sad that its what most people today see about Cream. We were much better than that.

I'm not sure if we were still on good terms when Cream broke up. I discovered later that my behaviour at the time used to scare Eric to death. I was always getting into scrapes. We parted on fairly good terms. I still have problems with Jack even today over the things that went on with Cream. But I miss it, there's no doubt about that."

Their trusty roadie Ben Palmer thought he now faced unemployment but ahead lay involvement with Blind Faith and Eric's own bands. By the time Cream split Palmer had grown used to the shenanigans of the rock'n'roll world. Although he was proud of Cream he wasn't overly impressed by what he saw as the debasement of blues music that such commercially successful rock bands represented. "I've always felt that a great opportunity was lost. I don't want to sound high-minded about this, but I do think that at the centre of the blues there is something which is nourishing and real. Along with jazz, it's the greatest gift that America has given the world. When I consider what the rock'n'roll movement has made of that material—well I never thought much of it frankly."

Palmer thinks that rock has always been inclined to pick up the trivial and the entertaining rather than life's more important matters. He believes that the best popular music should try to deal with people's lives as well as be entertaining.

"I don't think rock'n'roll has been that. The only group that came out of the whole thing that I have any lasting and deep respect for was The Band. They dealt with serious matters and lots of influences very well. They played wonderfully and how they managed to remain as pure as that in the middle of all the rest of it, I don't know.

As for Cream, I think Eric found a style of playing that the band demanded. There was something about that band which almost dictated the way it was going to be. It grew organically. Nobody talked about what it was going to do or planned its musical future. It just developed very quickly and powerfully. Eric was the kind of musician who could survive and triumph under that sort of pressure."

Although Ginger Baker wasn't happy with their last shows, the fans reacted with tremendous enthusiasm. As the last fans drifted away from the Albert Hall with the sound of 'White Room,' 'Sunshine Of Your Love' and 'Crossroads' ringing in their ears, they would only have their memories and a brace of farewell albums to savour. Goodbye was released in March, 1969 with a show biz style cover shot of the band posing in satin suits with top hats and canes. It was the first time they had all been seen smiling since the formation of the band.