Shindig! #173 – Cream
Egos! Mind Games! Heroin! Turkeys!
Sixty years since rock’s first supergroup CREAM formed in a whirl of virtuosity and skullduggery, MARTIN RUDDOCK marvels at how they even survived their dicey first nine months
Freshly signed by Stigwood to Reaction, The Cream were officially unveiled by Welch in the 30th July issue of Melody Maker. Interviewing them at rehearsals, they were chirpy but nervy on the eve of their planned first show at The Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival, billed simply under their own names. “At the moment we’re trying to get a repertoire up for all the gigs we’ve got to do,” said Baker. “We’re digging back as far as we can, even 1927.” Quizzed about musical policy, Clapton called it “blues ancient and modern”, while Bruce joked, “We call it sweet and sour rock ’n’ roll.” Clapton hoped that new labelmate Pete Townshend would write them a song. The overworked Townshend was too busy, but Bruce was working on originals, penning the spiky, driving ‘NSU’. The opaque title referred to Non-Specific Urethritis, which Clapton was apparently recovering from at the time.
With its oblique verses, ‘NSU’ also played into Cream’s interest in dada. “We want a turkey on stage while we’re playing,” said Clapton. “I was going to have this hat made of a brim with a cage on top and a live frog inside. It would be very nice to have stuffed bears on stage. We’d ignore them – not acknowledge their presence at all.”
At the 11th hour, Cream made a surprise debut two days earlier than planned at Manchester Soul mecca The Twisted Wheel, filling a slot vacated by Joe Tex. Piling into a black Austin Princess driven by Ben Palmer (Baker had already written off the Rover), they apprehensively plugged in for the Mancunian soul kids. Bruce suggested adding a Tamla floor-filler to the set. “I wanted to do Junior Walker’s ‘Roadrunner’ but Eric wasn’t happy about it,” he told Beat Instrumental in November. They drove home to London with cheers ringing in their ears anyway.
Closing out their official unveiling at Windsor on 31st July, the crowd was wowed by Cream’s volume, intensity and dexterity. They quickly exhausted every tune they collectively knew, but kept jamming until Clapton finally announced, “Sorry, no more numbers worked out.”
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