Upon its original release over half a century ago, Cream’s initial Live album (released in April) markedly belied its title. The curators might well have found a concise concert piece to supplant the non-sequitur called “Lawdy Mama,” taken from the sessions for the trio’s sophomore studio album of 1967 Disraeli Gears (wherein lies the archetypal rifftune “Sunshine Of Your Love”), especially since the 1972 sequel to this collection is comprised of comparatively shorter tracks.
Notwithstanding that conundrum, the initial pair of standalone Cream concert titles, as well as the live half of their double LP Wheels Of Fire (plus three of the tracks on 1969’s Goodbye), camouflaged the economy of their first releases. The quasi-vaudeville single “Wrapping Paper,” as well as the more logically sourced initial longplayer, Fresh Cream, belied the individual and collective pedigree of Clapton, Bruce, and Baker.
But the eccentricities of those records eventually gave way to live performances where the three explored the intricacies of their blues and jazz background(s), often to great lengths. Jambands were decades away at this time, while similar adventures by the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers were only just beginning. Still, the fearsome levels of intensity and intricate depth of Cream’s musicianship at its best could nonetheless descend into instrumental battles between the three, especially in the later days of their short-lived union.
Yet Live Cream is not seriously bogged down with dead ends of ego and imagination. Except, that is, for the inclusion of the aforementioned studio cull: it interrupts the flow of the more extemporaneous content at the end of side one on vinyl. It sounds utterly anticlimactic as the final track on CD.
Otherwise, a veritable onslaught of improvisation begins right after the strident vocals on “N.S.U.” Yelled rather than sung, perhaps to be heard over the massive sound emanating from the stacks of Marshall amplifiers, the distracted nature of the voices suggests the band was (all too) eager to dispense with that element of the performance and get to the improvisations.
The group is obviously out of tune in vocal harmonizing on “Sweet Wine” too. But as with the best moments of the other cuts, recorded at Winterland in San Francisco in March of 1968 by engineers Tom Dowd and Bill Halvorsen, the instrumental spontaneity conjures a palpable ebb and flow.
The modified blues of “Sleepy Time Time” also represents some respite from a sometimes withering onslaught of borderline combative demonstrations of technique. Clapton, Bruce and Baker are listening to each other here rather than indulging themselves as they do on this speedy interpretation of the blues workhorse “Rollin’ and Tumblin’;” during this near seven minutes, the irascible drummer’s playing is almost as breathless as the fiery bassist’s tradeoffs between singing and blowing harmonica, all of it as caustic in tone as the deceptively taciturn Slowhand’s distorted guitar riffing.
Just over two years after their formation, Cream disbanded in 1968 with their heralded farewell concert at Royal Albert Hall (where they would reunite in 2005). And in the slightly over a half-century plus since the release of Live Cream, the seminal power trio’s influence has been superseded to some degree by Jimi Hendrix’ Band Of Gypsys.
Nevertheless, as captured on this erratic fifty-five year-old compendium, the fiery instrumental axis of this British powerhouse–its name not so humbly appropriated from the adage ‘cream of the crop’– vividly mirrors the tumultuous intraband relationship as well as the groundbreaking artistic aspect of their work (as does the cover photo).
And while 1997’s Those Were The Days and the similarly-expansive Goodbye Tour – Live 1968 of 2020 might well render redundant these previously-released concert collections, hearing the juggernaut that was Cream in its concert prime invariably whets the appetite for more.
