OPO: Cream

Clapton's the weak link for me, and I actually like his playing on those records (even/especially the live stuff). But I can't help but wonder what Cream would've been like with Richard Thompson in Clapton's place.

xp

She Walks Like Bearded Richard (Thompson)

Looked over the songwriting credits on Wikipedia, and these are my favourite Bruce (and usually Brown) songs: "N.S.U.," "Sunshine of Your Love," "White Room," "Deserted Cities of the Heart," and "Doin' That Scrapyard Thing." They all sound really gloomy and druid-like, far away from their blues covers (Clapton's influence, I'm guessing...maybe they're not so far away), except for "Scrapyard," which is really sprightly and in the running for my favourite Cream song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzcPVCzfZMM

The two Live Cream LPs bang.

BADGE.

she cried away her life since she fell out the cradle

we move like the sea

i'll stay with you till my sea's all dried up

strange brew. Nicely captures all the things they were good at and doesn't overstay its welcome.

Driving in my car, smoking my cigar,
The only time I'm happy's when I play my guitar.

i'll stay with you till my sea's all dried up

This "Live from Detroit '67/ Live at the Grande Ballroom" radio broadcast recording by Cream from October of '67 is really, really good. They play with a really total madcap abandon and it is probably the most intense Clapton playing. Sound quality is pretty decent for the time too, pretty comparable with say a Dick's Pick collection.

MC5 was one of the opening acts at this gig.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDSugBduE4k&list=PLYCCW7ubODkJZf1FkCtOzkQhDhd1IzeSm&index=4&t=0s

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/sep/26/cream-ginger-baker-critically-ill

Ginger Baker has died. Wild and brilliant are two of the kinder adjectives they might have used.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/oct/06/ginger-baker-wild-and-brilliant-cream-drummer-dies-aged-80

Wild anyway.

disraeli gears is still a great album, and baker gurvitz army remains underrated.

his lasting legacy is probably 'beware of mr baker,' tho.

Kind of agree with this. Who else would start combination Jazz & Polo club so he would have a place to play?

Double Bass Drums too, although Keith Moon beat him to 'em.

I guess too he was the first Rock band player to do drum solos?

His album with Fela is superb but agree everything is overshadowed by Beware of Mr Baker. Sure, the filmmaker got a broken nose but he also baked into celluloid (if it needed proving) that Ginger was a sociopath.

first Baker Gurvitz Army record is great!

The documentary is on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7h8CqYXEx0

over and over, he said "I can throw down with Tony Williams, Elvin Jones et al, no other rock guys can swing, but I can!" Yet, while he used patterns that drummers would use to swing, he never really did, that I heard. I liked listening to him for his overpowering tastelessness…

The live Cream albums are fun to listen to for the absolute, heedless lack of sensitivity and interest each guy has in the other two. Jack Bruce famously was turned up so loud that when the other guys stopped playing, he kept going; maybe he couldn't hear anyone else, or maybe he didn't care…those albums also have examples where he is way way way the fuck out of tune for long streches… friend of mine said today, "now Ginger and Jack can not listen to each other in suckass blues jam heaven."

Why did Baker leave Lagos? Documentary materials hype his journey down there to set up the recording studio, but they never explain what caused him to leave Nigeria. One obituary posted today says he eventually lost control of the studio. Was it money or political issues?

In the documentary it seems like the record industry (largely British-controlled at that point) got the government to shut him down.

over and over, he said "I can throw down with Tony Williams, Elvin Jones et al, no other rock guys can swing, but I can!" Yet, while he used patterns that drummers would use to swing, he never really did, that I heard. I liked listening to him for his overpowering tastelessness…

I almost paraphrased this last on the Obit Thread.

Elvin otm. Baker was probably the best drummer Hawkwind ever had, kind of a low bar though.

Elvin Jones otm

Baker was the worst sounding of the 60s name drummers

I love that Elvin quote.

Mick Jagger
@MickJagger
·
3h
Sad news hearing that Ginger Baker has died, I remember playing with him very early on in Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated. He was a fiery but extremely talented and innovative drummer.
My fave thing with his input is one of the first and best CDs I bought, No Material, with him listed as leader,ears say for commercial purposes: live with Sonny Sharrock, Peter Brotzmann, Nicky Skopelitis, Jan Kazda (last minute sub for Laswell,hence the title). Unperson reminded me there's at least/most one other gig recorded, but this line-up last long.

didn't last long.

Yeah, those two gigs were all there ever was, I think. There's a great quote from Charlie Watts in the documentary - he says basically that every time you heard a new band from Ginger it was amazing, and you'd want it to go on forever, but then it would blow up after a week.

Just listened to Disraeli Gears a few nights ago. Classic album.

Track down "Gonks go Beat", a terrible movie. The producers clearly had no idea what they were doing, and accidentally added some really good bits with Graham Bond and Ginger Baker to the fore, in a movie that was otherwise aiming for the Cliff Richard teenager market (non existant at that point)

is it just sunday, or does ILM consider Ginger a rockist (or a jazzisit?) so beneath contempt that his death is not worth noting?

Wasn’t it already noted? And continuing to be noted?

Cream are not really what you'd call big favourites on ILM.

I hate his playing on the Blind Faith album too.

It's come to something when Jack Bruce is the nice guy in your band

Ginger is accorded the same respect as various other prickly musical characters we have known-Lou Reed, Alex Chilton, to name two- although perhaps his musical output is less highly regarded across the board.

I've been cheerleading for Cream on here for years. In all honesty, though, I think my longstanding Cream fandom--going back 40 years to high school--is largely tied in with Clapton and Bruce. I don't know--I'm probably taking Baker's drumming for granted, and maybe he had a hand in writing some of my favourite songs.

According to the doc, he’s responsible for the 5/4 part of White Room

I don't think we should him or other members of Blind Faith for the way the album turned out: apparently the label rush-released it, and maybe fiddled with it, before the musos considered it finished. Which probably added to my impression of prematurely old men doing music therapy in a rundown, but still clinical halfway house or prison: proto-metal is the term we have now that I think of it in terms of, as a fan of early Sabs for instance,

Ginger Baker does have the most varied discography of any of the classic UK drummers of that era. He did eventually make quite a few jazz records. The music he did with Bill Frisell and Charlie Haden is cool. There are some nice videos of that group on YT. I really like that Masters of Reality cd he did, but how that ended up was pretty sad (kinda Spinal Tap moment for Baker).

The Blind Faith album is probably best approached as an EP--although sometimes the mood does strike for "Do What You Like".

Cream sucks, this guy was an asshole, the album w fela is good. The end.