Writers: Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton, and Pete Brown
Producer: Felix Pappalardi
Recorded: April 1967 at Atlantic Studios, New York
Released: November 1967
| Players: | Eric Clapton — vocals, guitar Jack Bruce — vocals, bass Ginger Baker — drums |
| Album: | Disraeli Gears (Atco, 1967) |
Cream formed in July 1966. Eric Clapton had recently finished with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Jack Bruce had credits in the Graham Bond Organisation, Alexis Korner's Blues Inc., and Manfred Mann. Ginger Baker had also played in the Graham Bond Organisation and Alexis Korner's Blues Inc.
The band was hailed as rock's first supergroup and defined the power trio format. According to Clapton biographer Ray Coleman, “They made musicianship hip.”
Cream played its first concert–under the members' individual names–on July 31, 1966 at the sixth annual Jazz & Blues Festival in England.
For Clapton, it was Cream more than any of his previous bands that established his stature as a guitar hero and led to “Clapton is God” graffiti springing up around England. “All during Cream I was riding high on the 'Clapton is God' myth that had been started up,” he said. “Then we got our first kind of bad review…in Rolling Stone. The magazine ran an interview with us in which we were really praising ourselves, and it was followed by a review that said how boring and repetitious our performance had been. And it was true!…I immediately decided that that was the end of the band.”
“Sunshine Of Your Love” was Cream's biggest hit, peaking at Number Five in the U.S. and selling more than a million copies.
The song was also a top 5 hit in the U.K.
The Disraeli Gears album was a million-seller that hit Number Four on the Billboard 200 chart.