Cream

UK Power trio remembered for their individual members' virtuosity despite the fact that their recorded output is more notable for inane lyrics, tired blues covers and incessant harmonica warbling.

Cream- not so much a band as three individuals getting in each other's way.

Ginger Baker (drums, interminable soloing) met Jack Bruce (bass, interminable soloing) in 1963 when they were both playing for The Graham Bond Organization, a group which contained Graham Bond but very little actual organization. Heroin addiction, paranoia and general crankiness eroded GBO's group cohesion and the fact that nobody enjoyed their music didn’t help much either.  Bruce hated Baker because he found him rude, bullying, obnoxious and generally unpleasant. Baker hated Bruce because he hated anyone who had noticed how rude, bullying obnoxious and generally unpleasant he was. In 1965 Baker sacked Bruce, reportedly after attacking him with a knife backstage at a gig. The two parted ways and Baker vowed never to work with Bruce ever again, with the GBO breaking up soon afterwards.

The Graham Bond Organization. With Bond on the left and Baker on the right next to Jack Bruce. After his band broke up, Bond started to show less interest in music and more interest in the occult and claimed he was the son of legendary dark mage Aleister Crowley. Bond died in 1974 when he was run over by a train in the London Underground. His death may have been a suicide or might have been an accident, nobody can be bothered trying to work out which.

Baker found himself without a group in the mid-sixties and so was open to a job offer from Eric Clapton, who was keen to experiment with this psychedelia thing that all the cool kids were talking about. Baker was excited about working with Clapton but baulked when the guitarist suggested Bruce would be the only person capable of rounding out the trio. Baker had vowed to never work with Bruce again but relented when it became clear just how much money would be involved. The band was named Cream, either because they were the Cream of the British blues scene or because everyone knew it would all go off and turn sour after a short period of time.

Fresh Cream. Bruce and Clapton are dressed as aviators while Baker wears a small animal on his head.

Fresh Cream was released in 1966 and established the band's legacy early with an emphasise on self-indulgence over artistry. Cloyingly twee originals (Sleepy Time Time) mixed with bog-standard blues covers and were overshadowed by the final track, a drum solo named Toad which consisted almost entirely of Ginger Baker hitting things until he stopped. On the record, the solo lasted five minutes but in concert, he could stretch Toad out for twenty minutes of mind-crushing percussion. Baker would work himself into a sweat-soaked lather while the rest of the band took a much-needed drug break and the audience rushed to beat the queue at the toilets.

Ginger Baker, ten minutes into a solo and just getting warmed up.

Toad would have been much closer to bearable if Baker didn’t treat the rest of a Cream concert like a drum solo that the other two ruined by playing over the top of. His "They came to see me and you two are just my backing band" attitude was shared by Clapton (who was actually correct) and Bruce, who was fooling himself if he thought anyone paid money to hear a concert-length bass solo. Songs that lasted two minutes on an album became 15 minute monsters in which all three members raged on their respective instruments oblivious to anything going on around them. Clapton recalls a gig late in their career when he stopped playing altogether to see if anyone noticed (something he should have done for the entire of the 1980’s). Baker and Bruce apparently went on playing without realising Eric was watching angrily from the side of the stage.

Disraeli Gears features 11 tracks from 8 different songwriters. The three members all contribute along with Marty Feldman's cousin, an Australian cartoonist, the producer, and the producer's wife (whose only other contribution to music was to shoot her husband dead in 1983).

1967’s Disraeli Gears featured Sunshine of Your Love, their biggest hit, along with a three-part harmony entitled Mothers Lament, an old cockney song about a mother whose baby is so thin it gets washed down the plughole after bath time. For most groups, a badly sung novelty song about poverty and accidental infanticide would be the nadir of their catalogue but on a Cream album, it actually serves as some light relief from the budget price psychedelia and over-earnest blues covers. Cream’s lack of songwriting talent was brought into fresh perspective by their reliance on pompous but talentless outside lyric writers who provided meaningless diatribes for the group’s recorded output. Performance “poet” Peter Brown wrote the lyrics for songs including She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow, whose nonsense rhyming must have taken him three minutes to write but has kept him in royalty cheques for over five decades.

Wheels of Fire was released in 1968 and contained a live disc, so those who hadn’t managed to attend a Cream show could appreciate just what an endurance marathon they were with its 44 minute running time taken up by only four tracks.

The group in a typically relaxed and convivial mood.

Three albums and two years in each other’s company were more than enough for Baker and Bruce who had taken to arguing constantly. By 1968 they were barely on speaking terms and the only time spent in each other’s company were concerts and the customary post-show argument. The group decided one more album (1969’s Goodbye Cream), and a brief farewell tour would spell the end of the group and they parted ways with Baker vowing to never work with Bruce ever again.

Goodbye Cream, the impending group break up brought about the only smiles the band produced during their time together.

All three members launched solo careers with mixed success. Clapton became a guitar god, Bruce became a guy who used to be in Cream, and Baker became a notoriously crotchety individual with a reputation as the most obnoxious man in rock and roll. As the years progressed it became clear that Baker didn’t become a drummer because of his love of percussion as much as his need to find an outlet to legally hit things. His violent temper led to the assault of several friends and bandmates and those who didn’t physically attack he was more than happy to denigrate in antagonistic interviews. At one point Baker even joined a group led by former Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten, presumably because it was the only chance Baker had to claim he wasn’t the most personally repugnant member of the band.

Ginger Baker in the years when his face caught up with his personality. The smoke coming from his mouth isn't tobacco, it's pure, seething hatred. 

Bruce and Baker reunited in 1993 to form a Cream-clone with Irish guitarist Gary Moore replacing Clapton but the reunion was short-lived as Baker and Bruce began arguing again and Moore was added to the list of people Baker felt personally and musically beneath him (a large list that also appears to include everyone, everywhere ever). The group disbanded after one forgettable album with Baker vowing to never work with Bruce again.

Cream reformed for a series of one-off reunion concerts in 2005, reportedly because Clapton responded to pleas from the other two who needed help paying their various medical and rehab bills. The shows sold out and a further tour was planned but had to be scrapped when Bruce and Baker remembered how much they hated each other and began arguing again. The reunion collapsed with Bruce vowing never to work with Baker again.

Bruce died in 2014 and received loving tributes from friends, colleagues and former bandmates. 

Baker died in 2019 to a chorus of people mourning his drumming abilities while politely acknowledging that he was a deeply unpleasant personality.