CREAM: the legendary sixties supergroup

by Chris Welch

Interest in Cream doesn't seems to continue unabatted from dedicated fans and new ones.  This website and this new book proves it.

John Platt's excellent Disraeli Gears and this website seems to have stimulated Chris into heavily reworking his Strange Brew book.  This one is rigorously more intellectual with specialist contributions on each of the musicians and a comprehensive diary.  While Eric is featured on the cover, the book is very well balanced with new interviews with Ginger and Jack to flesh out some detail and correct some of their own misinformation in the past.

Tony Bacon has done an excellent editors job and obtained many great new photos and lots of memorabilia.  The small format doesn't show it off to full advantage but commercial realities have to intrude on such a niche market publication.

I could raise some quibbles about what the experts say as some of it is inaccurate, but that's the purpose of this site: detailed analysis with ongoing corrections.

All I can say is that it has already cleared up a few uncertainties and provided me with a rich vein to mine - especially from the detail shown in many of the photos.  Its already helped with the drumkit analysis.

I can strongly recommend it as the best Cream resource yet published.

Note: I did contribute to this book, specifically the material for the diary and some other details (check the acknowledgements). Tony was a demanding editor but we got things sorted out be email.

AVAILABLITY

USA:  Distributed by- Backbeat Books, available via Amazon, Borders and other big chains.

AUSTRALIA: Distributed by - Print Music Australia, probably easier to get from music stores.

© 2001 by Graeme Pattingale