Clapton Plans Cream's Rise To The Top Again

[CVX]

By Hugh Davies

The Telegraph - UK

11-13-4



Eric Clapton has astounded the music world by finally agreeing to reform Cream, rock's first supergroup, 36 years after they split up at the height of their worldwide fame.



Back then Clapton was declared a "guitar God", Ginger Baker was the epitome of the wild-eyed rock drummer and Jack Bruce was the pioneer of a raw, biting tone for the electric bass.



Over two years they sold more than 35 million records, producing a new form of "heavy" music that fused hard rock, blues and jazz. But they were unable to survive their ego-powered celebrity.



There was such venom at the end that, years later, Clapton said the thought of a reunion "scares the living daylights out of me".



John Mayall, the veteran leader of the Bluesbreakers, the British band from which Clapton defected to create Cream in 1966, said yesterday: "I'm amazed. But Eric is always doing something unexpected. He moves in so many directions, always out front with his music."



Sources close to the musicians said that reunion plans were under way, with Clapton, 59, Bruce, 61, and Baker, 65, talking of "probably two gigs, or maybe more" at the Royal Albert Hall in May, although that venue, where Clapton staged his traditional blues stint this spring, has yet to be booked.



The hall was where Cream last performed in Britain in November 1968 after shows in America that were earning the trio $60,000 a night.



Cream have played together only once since, with searing versions of White Room, Crossroads and Sunshine of Your Love, at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Los Angeles in 1993.



Clapton later told the rock writer Chris Welch, who was working on a biography of Cream: "There was a constant battle between Ginger and Jack. They loved each other's playing, but couldn't stand the sight of each other.



"I was the mediator and I was getting tired of that. Then when Rolling Stone called me the 'master of the blues clichÈ' that just about knocked me cold. That's when I decided to leave Cream."



Welch said yesterday: "I am amazed they are getting back together. They were musicians of such intensity, with Eric usually the calm one.



"They were a juggernaut, streets ahead of everyone else. I remember, as a Melody Maker journalist, Ginger ringing me up with the news that they were forming Cream. Our front page had already gone to press, so the news appeared on an inside page.



"I didn't discover until 30 years later that Ginger was hopping mad that it had been reported inside.



"There was a big fuss as each had omitted to tell their current bands they were leaving. Manfred Mann was angry at Jack for suddenly quitting - and John Mayall was not exactly thrilled by Eric's departure.



"I was at their first rehearsal, in a school hall in north-west London in July 1966, in front of a troop of brownies and a caretaker.



"Ginger had a small drum kit. Eric had a tiny amplifier. They performed three numbers: a very slow blues, a foot-stomping jug band number and a Robert Johnson song. Then we went to a transport cafe to do an interview.



"Once they started performing, they became very significant, very quickly. A problem was that they were on the road, night after night, month after month. It was a raw and exciting sound. But sustaining that kind of rock power every night was draining.



"I was genuinely shocked that they broke up. They could have done a lot more."



Rehearsals for the reunion, with new material, are expected to begin early in the new year.



Mayall, visiting London from his home in Los Angeles, said: "I can't imagine Cream's reappearance will be a marathon again, as Eric is now very much a family man.



"It's probably Eric on one of his nostalgia trips, as Jack and Ginger are not exactly headline names of this generation. It's likely to be for a charity, or the music, not the money."



Mayall hired both Clapton, and, at an earlier stage, Bruce for the Bluesbreakers. "Eric was an integral part of the band, and the first I heard that he was leaving was reading about it in Melody Maker," he said. "The trio had been quietly playing together, away from the limelight, in the rock underworld.



"Eric was a huge drawing power for my band, but I was not altogether surprised when he left. He was always a very restless soul.



"A reunion of Cream would be a classic show. The band was so influential. They helped pave the way for me in America. The Beatles were first. The Rolling Stones were next. Then there was Cream. I had my first US tour in 1968, and moved there a year later."



Cream members are staying silent at the moment about their plans. A spokesman for Clapton said that he had no comment. Bruce was on holiday, and there was no reply from Baker's farm in South Africa, where he raises polo ponies.



Baker has revealed that there was a point "when I totally went broke" in the 1970s. "I went to Eric and proposed a reunion. He said he didn't want to do it just because I was broke. This really hurt me at the time, but it was also absolutely true. That is not a reason to do something."



© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml= /news/2004/11

/13/ncream13.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/11/13/ixhome.html