Customer Reviews

BBC Sessions

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4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

There have been rumors circulating about the release of this set for a number of years and I'm pleased that the "BBC Sessions" finally was officially released. This release helps to explain why no BBC material was included of the 4 cd box set "Those Were The Days" Some of the material included here has been widely available on bootlegs for years. However, there are some cuts included here that I have not seen on bootlegs. The inclusion of "Crossroads" which predates the released version and "Sunshine Of Your Love" are 2 such tracks. The rarities "Lawdy Mama" and the second version of "Steppin Out" have previously been released on Eric Clapton's "Crossroads" box set. The "BBC Sessions" illustrate what a diverse band Cream was during their brief existence. Tracks range from the pop of "I Feel Free" to the psychedelia of "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" to blues covers like "Rollin' and Tumblin" and the improvisational jamming in the instrumental "Steppin' Out". All the members were top musicians of their time and all contributed material for the band to record. Eric Clapton with his clean bluesy playing was an eye opening inspiration to young guitarists. He was reluctant to handle vocals during this time so the inclusion of Robert Johnson's "Four Until Late" is unexpected. Jack Bruce handled the majority of the vocals and songwriting. His harmonica playing is spotlighted on "Traintime". Bruce's bass playing was revolutionary at the time in that he freed the instrument from strictly being a member of the rhythm section. He often soloed over top of what Ginger Baker or Eric Clapton were playing. Drummer Ginger Baker along with Bruce had a background in jazz. Baker while not a just a timekeeper also liked to playing complex patterns across the solos of Clapton and Bruce. He also contributed both the occasional song such as "Sweet Wine" and vocal such as "Blue Condition" not included here. Baker was also known for being tempermental especially with Bruce and for having one of the first drum kits with a double bass drum. The versions of "Politician" and Albert King's "Born Under A Bad Sign" predate their official album releases. "Politician" one of my favorite Cream cuts was written just prior to playing it live on the BBC. The improvisational nature of the band especially evident in concert is spotlighted in cuts like "Cat's Squirrel", "I'm So Glad" and "N.S.U." The versions of Blind Joe Reynolds' "Outside Woman Blues" and the psychedelic "Swlabr" are especially impressive here. Occasionally Brian Matthew's voice overs become annoying but it is worth it for the music. It is a shame that some cuts like "Spoonful" "Sleepy Time Time", "Sitting On Top Of The World", "Toad" and "Blue Condition" from the BBC recordings were either lost or destroyed. The "BBC Sessions" provide an essential retrospective of one of the best and most influential bands of the late sixites. It is a shame that the band broke up so soon. Now that the "BBC Sessions" by Cream are released when will the BBC recordings by the Rolling Stones and Free be released commercially!

I had the pleasure of seeing Cream live in San Diego while they were on their farewell tour and have always enjoyed their music, so I was delighted when I saw this CD appear in amazon's listings and ordered it immediately.
OK, these are not the best recordings ever, but they are still good when you consider the circumstances under which they were made. There is a lot of "sound" that you hear on a studio recording that's just not here, but that's what happens when its live. Besides, the technology at that time was primitive compared with what's available today.
Since my favorite Cream albums are Disraeli Gears and Wheels of Fire, my favorite songs here come from those albums. The best of those are a driving rendition of Tales of Brave Ulysses, and stand-out performances of Born Under A Bad Sign, Outside Woman Blues, Politician, and SWALBR.
Eric Clapton does the talking on the short interview clips, but it is really Ginger Baker who stands out most here as he punishes his drum kit mercilessly and provides the thundering beat that is a Cream trademark.
If you were and are a fan of Cream, you should own this CD and hear Clapton, Bruce and Baker as they are rising to the top of the late 60s musical world.

As in many things, it's the misfortunes that end up being unforeseen treasure. Back in the sixties the state run British Broadcasting Corporation was limited to how many hours it could play phonographs because of feared sales loss in the shops, oddly like the internet debate in present time. To make up for their limited outside source they brought in the best musicians and performers of the day to record live versions of their material for the BBC to play. In what must be shelves and shelves of old tapes there has been, over the past decade or so, release after release of amazing and historical sessions recorded for BBC airplay have seen the light of day. Finally we have the much known about and much rumored release of Cream's trips to the Beeb and it is well worth the wait. The sessions display just how rapid the trio rose to prominence as the recordings all were recorded within 14 months of each other, but the band at the January 1968 session is much evolved from the blues band that first hit the airwaves in November 1966.

Cream were quite rightly rock's first supergroup and without a doubt lived up to the title. They were comprised of the "cream" of the British blues scene musicians with Eric Clapton (Yardbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers) on guitar along with 2 Graham Bond Organization veterans in bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker. From the start they not only wanted to continue to pay tribute to the old blues masters they so longed to emulate but to bring the blues to new territory, which for them ended up being psychedelic pop and rock. Their earliest sessions demonstrate this with their debut straight pop single "Wrapping Paper" an early inclusion, but alongside it are a bunch of spirited blues renditions of songs like "Rollin' and Tumblin'", "Steppin' Out", "Cat's Squirrel", and most notably their well known remake of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads", here performed well over a year before it would see inclusion on the live disc of their third LP, Wheels of Fire.

One of the most historic and interesting aspect of these archive releases is the ability to hear classic tracks performed while being worked on or before their commercial releases. Here we're treated to their next single "Strange Brew", the revolutionary wah-wah guitar monster "Tales of Brave Ulysses", and the haunting "We're Going Wrong" months before their sophomore LP Disraeli Gears would be available. Their next sessions would be around the time of that record's release and would feature the soon to be classic track "Sunshine of Your Love" as well as a preview of the the Albert King cover in "Born of a Bad Sign", which would not see release until the second new record Wheels of Fire. The same is true of "Politician" that they not only performed at their next visit, but the song's musical composition was finished at the very session it was debuted.

The real treat in this release from Cream is that we get to hear them play live without having to venture into their extended jams, which have their virtues but distract from the real strengths of the trio. They made 10 minute jams as interesting as one could but when they concentrated on packing their volatile energy together with Clapton's concentrated guitar playing floating over the intricate drums playing of Ginger Baker and rolling bass lines and howling vocals of Jack Bruce they were hard to match. This is an essential display of the immensely influential trio at their best and cements the impact they made in the less than 3 years they were together.

This collection of songs recorded for the BBC are what Cream were really all about, that is, raw and exciting rock with a definate blues influence. The songs Cream recorded for the BBC are the way the group actually sounded live. The band is full of energy with Clapton, Bruce and Baker sounding as strong as ever. Clapton's guitar licks are amazing and Jack Bruce's five string bass style and vocals are top notch as are Ginger Baker's drumming. Some of the songs included in this BBC collection are from Clapton's early days with John Mayall & The Blues Breakers (Steppin' Out"), Cream's "Fresh Cream" album ("Sweet Wine", "Rollin' & Tumblin'", Cat's Squirrel", "I'm So Glad", "I Feel Free", "N.S.U.",and "Four Until late"), the "Disraeli Gears" album ("Strange Brew", "Tales Of Brave Ulysses", "Swlabr", "We're Going Wrong", "Outside Woman Blues", "Take It Back", and "Sunshine Of Your Love"), the "Wheels Of Fire" double album ("Politician", and "Crossraods")as well as their earliest songs in "Wrapping Paper" and "Lawdy Mama". These songs Cream recorded for the BBC are raw, and not quite the polished versions you'd hear on their albums. As a matter of fact the sound quality of certain songs is average at best, but don't let that stop you from hearing this amazing trio at their peak. Also included is a fifteen page booklet with interesting info. and rare pictures of the band. If you artists such as The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Doors, Steppenwolf, Blue Cheer, etc. then you'll love this recording. Highly recommended.

I'm afraid there is not much to recommend this CD. Cream is one of the best bands that ever existed; but this collection of BBC sessions does not add anything to what can be had in their "official" albums. All of these selections come from that brief time of Fresh Cream and Disraili Gears. The sound quality is little above AM radio condition and there is no hint of stereo separation. None of the songs in this collection are extended performances and the four interviews with Eric Clapton shed no light on Cream beyond what could be gleaned from a short encyclopedia article on the band.

Other "BBC Sessions" of the Beatles, The Who, and Led Zeppelin were well worth getting. The sound quality for those recordings was also substandard but what made them worthwhile was that they were fun to listen to. For some reason, that sense of "fun" is missing here. For only those who must collect every recorded note Cream played

Cream's BBC sessions have been on bootlegs for decades, and now they are finally given official release. The sound quality isn't actually as bad as some here are making out--a few songs
are below-par, but it's a miracle some of these were found at all. Anyways, it's great to hear Cream live, but succinct: no 15-minute jams, just 2-4 minute mini-masterpieces. It's also fascinating to hear the band play songs that would not be released until much later in their career: "Wheels Of Fire" tracks like "Crossroads", "Traintime", "Born Under A Bad Sign" and "Politician" are heard in renditions as early as 1966, and they do not sound too bad, either. Clapton's playing is intense and firey right from the beginning, although one wonders why they ever played silly novelty numbers like "Wrapping Paper", "Take It Back" or "Four Until Late" when they were burning it up with heavy classics like "Sweet Wine", "I'm So Glad" (a superb rendition), "Tales Of Brave Ulysses", "Sunshine Of Your Love" and "SWLABR". Any Cream fan will love this collection, which also features a nice booklet with the usual
liners, photos, etc. Now we finally have some officially released examples of Cream's live capabilities in the first stage of their career, which fills an important vacuum; buy this along with the box set and you'll have everything you need.

Eric Clapton asked Free guitarist Paul Kossoff "How the hell do you do that" referring to Kossoff's signature vibrato. In his last interview in Guitar Player magazine, Kossoff commented on a recent Clapton concert he witnessed by saying "He whipped up quite a storm."
Two guitar legends, two sound qualities. Free's BBC recordings are crisp and sharp. I simply could not believe how muddled the Cream recordings sounded,
Now I will ask the question to the persons responsible for making Cream sound muddled in 2007: "How the hell do you do that?" Were you afraid to spend a few more pennies to clean up the sound of these recordings?
Inexcusable. Clapton and Kossoff forever.

I read the reviews regarding sound quality, as well as reviews of other BBC Sessions albums I have and decided that the complaints come from trying to compare these live recordings to the remastered studio albums. After listening to it all the way through twice I think the sound quality is what you'd expect for a BBC Sessions album, not perfect, but far from unlistenable. The album includes an excellent version of Robert Johnson's Four Until Late. Other standouts include Born Under a Bad Sign and Cat's Squirrel. The worst sounding songs quality-wise are Sunshine Of Your Love and Rollin' and Tumblin', but I can live with those. Chalk up another one for the BBC by presenting some more material from the Sixties, sounds as fresh as it did all those years ago.

I have the Pyramid version of BBC sessions that kills this one for sound quality.
Why why why does this sound so bad?

Get the bootleg version.

This release was a pleasant surprise, as it's been AGES since a "new" release came about from THE rock & roll power trio. For hard core collectors, chances are that they've come across most of this material at one time or another...but there are some unreleased tracks on this collection that do make it worth getting. Not necessarily essential Cream... but a worthy addition. Has some seldom played songs that were done live, such as Born Under a Bad Sign.

I also HIGHLY recommend this to the casual Cream fan/s that don't quite enjoy(or comprehend) the long "jamming" that they were inclined to do at the time. Spoonful, Toad, NSU, Steppin' Out....

The BBC broadcasts were usually on a time constraint, so the performances are mostly kept to a minimum regarding improvisation(well, for Cream anyway). For the folks that enjoy the stretched out playing (or excess depending on the person)... well, let's hope that 10/15/67 at the Grande Ballroom will be officially released one day, as it has some superior versions of songs that were on the official live material.

Is it me, or the general public continually fails to acknowledge the contributions of Jack Bruce & Ginger Baker to Cream? This misconception is not alleviated with the liner notes & the fact Eric's interviews are the only ones included on this disc. Well, atleast Bruce's solo albums are FINALLY being re-released as imports.... next up.... Airforce? How about it?