Customer Reviews

Cream: The World's First Supergroup

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dave thompson's book on cream is a significant improvement on his last work, which covered the story of deep purple. there 's more of an analysis of the actual music itself. conversely, thompson seemed to often lack depth in dissecting purple's songs and albums. one may think that perhaps thompson is better at describing brief careers like cream's- as opposed to lengthy, "complicated" ones with plenty of albums and personnel changes like deep purple. thompson offers readers an engaging and interesting look at the early british jazz, r and b, and blues boom, and the musical backgrounds of all three members prior to the formation of this astounding unit. an impressive list of interviewed people like jack bruce and ginger baker themselves greatly help this book in being an enjoyable and informative read. this book adequately and intriguingly covers the career of cream, simply one of the greatest aggregations of talent from rock's greatest era..

After reading the book I found it entertianing and over all very informative with excellent coverage of the early British Blues scene. Not to lay too much stress on this one item but towards the end of the book when Cream are wrapping up their final American performances he lists the seating capacity of New Yorks Madison Square Garden at 220,000 seats. This is absolutely wrong and certainly not a typo. South American soccer stadiums don't have this capacity. To me when I read a simple fact like this that's so glaring incorrect I start to wonder about the other "facts" presented in the book. The Amazon blurb about the "hedonistic lifestyle" is out of place. While I'm sure there were incindences of this kind the author doesn't stoop to the level of some rock writers tabloid mentality. Well worth reading, but listen to the music first.

Thompson's book is a well-researched, detailed, and utterly crucial-for-a-fan look at the brief career of Cream. Though a little light on analysis of the music itself, Thompson expertly tells the story of Cream with both previously-written interviews and his own research. I learned a lot that I didn't know before, and was particulary impressed with his evocative writing on the early '60s British R&B scene and snapshots of the era and players like Alexis Corner, Cyril Davies, and John Mayall. The only thing missing, due to printing timing, was a chapter on the London and NY reunion shows and what lead up to them (maybe for the paperback???).

I first decided to check Cream out when reading a couple of sources which listed them as being heavy influences on Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, which are the two bands most responsible for creating what was then still a relatively favorite area of rock music for me: heavy metal. Even then, I was starting to lean more toward noise-rock and avant-garde. The reading of this book would awaken within me an interest of the respective genres of jazz fusion and British blues. I haven't had much time to pursue this interests(note: Lifetime's incredible, and so is Fleetwood Mac's 3rd album), yet I may end up picking up Strange Brew one of these days to find out more. This is just an incredibly fascinating book.

One of the main strengths of this book is the way that Thompson is able to provide detailed perspectives and insight as to the main reason for Cream's successes and failures. The writing style may be somewhat clunky at times, but it does an excellent job at explanation. You'll get info on how what was originally quite a small and well-knit scene of musicians playing blues grew to have a major influence on the British, and as such the world scene. It all leads up to the formation of Cream. There is well-known information(Cream had 2 weeks to record Disraeli Gears in New York) and some not as known(Bruce and Clapton considered firing Baker at one point, but decided not to because they had a gig coming up. And like any good book on an influential group, we get insights from their contemporaries. One sentence Jeff Beck is quoted as saying about three bands often listed as heavy metal forerunners is especially so in showing how Cream's influence was felt initially in the country they initially had such a hard time breaking the market. There's even some funy stories including one where Bruce is hauled off to jail for drubk driving in Mexico as he screams "I'm top of the charts!" Ah, drunken eego....

At the end is a post-Cream outline of the members and their associates' careers which shows that they all still remained active with many projects. The discography at the end covers all of Bruce's, Clapton's, and Baker's known pre-Cream recordings, along with all official Cream releases, and television appearances. The only thing that this book could have maybe used a little more of might be information about specific shows. The other book by Chris Welch is supposed to be better in that regard. But if you want to know more about one of the most fascinating periods in rock music, please pick this up.

I figured Dave Thompson would do a great job on a CREAM book..........considering his excellent 'Truth'/The JEFF BECK GROUP
work, which nobody else has ever attempted (are you listening, CSM old buddy?) And I was right. This is a difficult book to put down, and gives a terrific account of Cream's entire two-plus year run; and it begins way before that, with much on the entire U.K. blues scene from the beginning, Alexis Korner, Graham Bond Org., Yardbirds, John Mayall, Manfred Mann. The only detail omitted which matters to me is a description of Jack, Eric, & Ginger's various brands and models of instruments/amplification. But that's well covered in Chris Welch's Cream book; also very good but nothing like this. D.T. is a fine writer, and the book is well worthy of your attention. Get it, I say. It's a bargain, too.