"Cream was a shambling circus of diverse personalities who happened to find that catalyst together...any one of us could have played unaccompanied for a good length of time. So you put the three of us together in front of an audience willing to dig it limitlessly, we could have gone on forever...And we did...just going for the moon every time we played." That's how Eric Clapton described his time in one of rock's first supergroups. And while Cream released four fine albums during their four
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Cream, Goodbye Tour Live 1968 (Polydor/UMC) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) This new 4-CD box set expands on Cream's farewell album Goodbye Cream, but with a twist: it drops the three studio tracks and instead presents four complete concerts including the Los Angeles Forum show from which the original three live cuts on Goodbye were culled. Overall, the book-style package has 36 tracks, 29 of which are premiering on CD. 19 of the
The fourth and final core album by Cream, 1969's Goodbye (sometimes referred to as Goodbye Cream), followed the structure of the previous year's Wheels of Fire. Whereas that album featured one disc of live recordings and one disc of studio tracks, the taut Goodbye had one live side and one studio side. Despite its short running time of just six songs, Goodbye packed considerable power from the triumvirate of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker. It reached the top of the Albums Chart in
2018 is already shaping up to be a great year for music documentaries; one such movie, Elvis Presley: The Searcher, recently debuted on HBO to rapturous notices. Soundtracks to two more probing films are on the way from Universal On June 8, the label will deliver both Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars and Beside Bowie: The Mick Ronson Story. No single compilation can successfully capture the entirety of Eric Clapton's remarkable career, though many from various labels have tried. Life in 12
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Chicago, Chicago II: Steven Wilson Remix (Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Chicago's second album gets a fully remixed edition from producer Steven Wilson, created from the original 16-track multitrack tapes and sure to highlight previously unheard or overlooked elements of this rock classic! Available on CD, with an LP edition to follow later in the year. Read more here! Cream, Fresh Cream: Super Deluxe Edition
A half century after it was first released, Fresh Cream, the debut album by super-trio Cream, will get a four-disc expansion in January. One of the first supergroups of the rock era, Cream paired Yardbirds and John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers guitarist Eric Clapton with singer/bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker, former and current members of the Graham Bond Organisation. (The volatile Baker, in fact, was part of why Bruce left Bond's group; the duo fought onstage frequently and
Welcome to this week's Release Round-Up! Various Artists, Here Today: The Songs of Brian Wilson (Vinyl) (Ace) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Ace brings its acclaimed 2015 Here Today: The Songs of Brian Wilson compilation to 180-gram white vinyl in a slimmed-down form (12 tracks vs. 25 on the CD) with all of Ace's deluxe hallmarks of packaging and annotation! The album features Darian Sahanaja of The Brian Wilson Band and The Wondermints along with Kirsty MacColl, Carmen
Well, this is it - the final big release week of the year! While next week will see releases slow to a trickle, this week is packed with exciting box sets and much more! Bruce Springsteen, The Ties That Bind: The River Collection (Columbia) 4-CD/3-DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada 4-CD/2-BD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon Canada This 4-CD/3-DVD or 4-CD/2-BD set celebrating The Boss' seminal album The River features a treasure trove of previously unreleased material across its 53 audio tracks