What Are You Listening To?

[Big Ears]

Fresh Cream, the fiirst album by Cream was released in 1966 and really does sound fresh after nearly fifty years. It is one of the first hard rock albums and anyone who thinks Metallica and Iron Maiden are 'heavy' should listen to this barnstorming collection. The traditional blues are never far away, but the band crank them up by one crucial notch (as on Willie Dixons' Spoonful and Skip James's I'm So Glad). Eric Clapton's guitar playing is bluesy, loud and dramatic, while Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce provide him with a flexible jazz-based rhythm section, so, collectively, they expand their ideas in a way rarely heard up to the mid-sixties (but which was later much emulated by the likes of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple). Jack Bruce is the perfect singer of the blues, because, as a crooner, he is unlike any other blues singer. Bruce and Eric Clapton harmonise well together, making their vocals more popular and psychedellic-sounding, and Clapton's less-utilised lead vocals are actually pretty good - pointing the way to his later solo career.

Stephen Erlewine sums up Fresh Cream very well at AllMusic, although I disagree that it now sounds tame. If I have a criticism, and it is a minor one, there is a tad too much of Bruce's harmonica on the album. However, they were ahead of their time, but could not step outside of the mid-sixties when harmonica was a key part of R'n'B. Fresh Cream is the best record I have dug out of mothballs in ages, and, if you like hard rock, blues-rock or music that is played by exemplary musicians, treat yourself to Fresh Cream.