Classic Albums: Cream – Disraeli Gears
I set out to watch this video with reserved expectations. I had not been aware of the DVD’s release (or the Classic Albums video series) and was, at best, hoping for a few undiscovered scraps of information on what was rock’s first super group, and maybe some live footage of the trio. But this video rocked. I will watch it again.
The video was produced in 2006, 39 years after Disraeli Gears was released (1967), and is a collection of current interviews with the band members, producers, roadies, friends who look back in time to when the album was being planned, recorded, and released. Each song from the album is discussed as studio and clips of live versions of the tunes are played as a backdrop for the interviews.
I must admit that I was a solid fan of Cream with Disraeli Gears being the first of their albums I literally dived into. At the time of the record’s peak popularity, I played in a band that performed 4 or 5 songs from the recording. So, nostalgia played a part in me enjoying the video.
The interviews with Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker were done in separate studios and were logically pieced together. They were interesting and gave me a lot of new information and, indeed, made the DVD worth watching by themselves.
Each song on the album is examined by musicians, writers, and producers, who tell stories about how these songs came to be: Who came up with the riff for the song, who wrote lyrics, what were new innovations brought around by the song. Each of the musicians played their instrument to demonstrate how the song building process had worked. Very nice since these were impromptu performances in their separate studios on acoustic instruments.
For example, when discussing their hit song “Sunshine of Your Love,” they start with Jack Bruce playing the signature riff on an acoustic bass. Bruce had come up with the riff in the wee hours of the morning after trying to write a song with lyricist Peter Brown. Since the morning was near, Brown came up with the first words of the song: “It’s getting near dawn…”
There were interesting perspectives from other contemporaries of the band. Robert Frick of the Rolling Stone Magazine said Cream was “an amazing shock” because there was “no other English Band that sounded that muscular and funky.” Ahmet Ertegün, founder of Atlantic Records, noted that, although Jack Bruce was a strong vocalist, they wanted to urge Eric Clapton to sing more since he had the blues voice. Ginger Baker noted that Eric was very shy.
These interviews and impromptu solo clips were merged with live footage of songs from the Disraeli Gears album, mostly in black and white due to the time period they were released.
If you are a Cream fan, or a fan of any of the musicians that comprised this group, you will enjoy this excursion through the album. This DVD is available online for purchase. I saw it on Netflix, but they’ve removed it since.