Cream - Fresh Cream (1966)

Cream is sometimes thought of as rock's first supergroup - pre-dating Blind Faith and Crosby, Stills and Nash - because guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker had already established their reputations in the sixties British blues-rock scene (Clapton with the Yardbirds and with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Bruce and Baker in the Graham Bond Organisation).  But when Cream debuted in July 1966 at the Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival, only Clapton, thanks to his apprenticeship with John Mayall, could be conceivably called a star - heck, London blues fans had already declared him to be God! - and their previous bands had nothing close to the popular appeal of the Rolling Stones, up to that point the British band most closely identified with the blues.  (Also, no one in Cream was known in America yet.)  Cream wasn't an all-star band that debuted with big-time expectations.  It was their music - as rich, thick and satisfying as their name implied - that made Clapton, Bruce and Baker stars and set standards for serious bands to follow. Cream wasn't the first supergroup, but it was the first band to champion instrumental mastery.

Fresh Cream, released in the United Kingdom in December 1966 and in the United States in January 1967, shows Clapton, Bruce and Baker using their virtuosity wisely.  There's none of the excess that undermined the trio later on, just powerful, expert performances that brought new life and vitality to American blues standards and made their originals spellbinding.  The intense chemistry of Bruce's bass and Baker's drums in original songs such as "N.S.U." (the title is from the common name of a venereal disease, not, despite the mention of a car in the lyrics, from the German automobile of that name) and "Sleepy Time Time" are countered by Clapton's burning, distorted chords and his cutting solos.  Clapton himself takes center stage in his sensitive, low-keyed vocal delivery on Robert Johnson's "Four Until Late," with a guitar line that's just as understated.

Jack Bruce sings lead on the rest of the songs on Fresh Cream (there are a couple of instrumentals, including Baker's interesting but unnecessary drum solo "Toad"), and while Bruce's voice is sometimes a bit too operatic for blues-based rock, his vocals on Willie Dixon's "Spoonful" and the traditional song "Rollin' and Tumblin'" are as masterful as his bass lines.  The latter track is especially noteworthy for how Cream worked as a tight, focused band when they communicated with each other rather than going in different directions. The oft-ridiculed "I'm So Glad," a Skip James song, is easy to make fun of for its repetitive chorus, but the sharp guitar and drum patterns and Bruce's muted delivery of the verses ("I'm tired of weeping, I'm tired of moaning, I'm tired of crying for you") betray the wishful thinking in the title, accentuating the pain and doubt drawn from James' original 1931 recording.

What Fresh Cream (produced by Cream's manager, Robert Stigwood) provided was not just a balanced fusion of blues and rock but a new, basic, substantial sound that took rock forward by honoring its blues roots and emphasizing instrumental prowess.  Rock fans on both sides of the Atlantic would catch on to the "power trio" concept soon enough; three-piece bands such as Rush and Nirvana would be inconceivable without Cream.  Fresh Cream made the blues cool, it made rock heavy, and it made Eric Clapton a guitar hero.

(Note: The version of Fresh Cream to look for is the later U.S. release that has the same track listing of the British edition, with "I Feel Free," Cream's second single, as a bonus track.  The track listing for the original 1967 U.S. edition is different from the British edition.)