At the beginning of the band’s farewell tour on 4 October 1968, in Oakland, California, nearly the entire set consisted of songs from Wheels of Fire : “White Room”, “Politician”, “Crossroads”, “Spoonful”, and “Deserted Cities of the Heart”, with “Passing the Time” taking the place of “Toad” for a drum…
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Cream decided that they would break up in May 1968 during a tour of the US. Later, in July, the band announced that they would break up after a farewell tour of the US and after playing two concerts in London. Jack Bruce was quoted as saying “Travel can kill…
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After the completion of Wheels of Fire in mid-1968, the band members had grown tired of their exhausting touring schedule and increasingly loud jamming, and wanted to go their separate ways. Baker stated in a 2006 interview with Music Mart magazine, “It just got to the point where Eric said…
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Cream were eventually persuaded to do one final album, appropriately titled Goodbye . The album was recorded in late 1968 and released in early 1969, after the band had broken up. It comprised six songs, three live recordings dating from a concert at The Forum in Los Angeles on 19…
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Oh, he shouted at me on stage, he turned his bass up so loud that he deafened me on the first gig. What he does is that he apologises and apologises, but I’m afraid, to do it on a Cream reunion gig, that was the end. He killed the magic,…
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In August 1967, the band played their first headlining dates in the US, first at The Fillmore in San Francisco and later at The Pinnacle in Los Angeles. The concerts were a great success and proved very influential on both the band itself and the flourishing hippie scene surrounding them.…
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In 1968 came the band’s third release, Wheels of Fire , which topped the American charts. The album was recorded in a spate of short sessions from July 1967 to June 1968. Still a relative novelty, the double album of two LP records was well-suited to extended solos. The Wheels…
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They returned to record Disraeli Gears in New York between 11 and 15 May 1967. This, the band’s second album, was released in November 1967 and reached the top five in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Produced by Felix Pappalardi (who later co-founded the Cream-influenced hard rock…
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The band first visited the US in March 1967 to play nine dates at the RKO 58th Street Theatre in New York City. Their impact was small, as impresario Murray the K placed them at the bottom of a six-act bill that performed three times per date, eventually reducing the…
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Disraeli Gears is often considered to be the band’s defining effort, successfully blending psychedelic British rock with American blues. It also included “Sunshine of Your Love”, which became the group’s highest-charting song, peaking at number five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 . The album was originally slated for release…
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