In this archive: Cream’s first exhaustive UK tour – gigs, line-ups, set-lists and reviews; Cream's debut performance for the BBC; how they came to play the Murray K Show; their first US tour; Ginger o.d's, and on another occasion collapses in London before a BBC radio recording ... read on!
The New Year kicked off with Cream undertaking a gruelling UK tour; first stop, The Ricky Tick Club in Windsor on the 7th January. On the same day The Melody Maker featured a double page article by Chris Welch, a ‘Focus on the group they said would never make it’. The first page was entitled ‘Pop Think in with Ginger Baker;’ in which Ginger answered questions on the subjects of Modern Art (specifically talking about the fibre-glass sculpture pictured in his auto-biography ‘Hellraiser’) Cream, Graham Bond, Drummers, Health, Drum Solo’s, Beards, Punch-ups, Irish Tempers, Keith Moon, Cars, Hang-ups, Fear, Love, N.S.U & The Small Faces!
The second related article asked Eric how he felt when Cream’s detractors said they wouldn’t last because of ‘clashing temperaments’? "It’s true we do have rows," replied Eric "But they are followed by really big embraces... afterwards it’s almost like falling in love again."
On January 11th they mimed their new (January released) single ‘I Feel Free’ for BBC TV’s ‘Top of the Pops’, when according to Jack Bruce, ‘Ginger got very upset about the rubber cymbals’. On January 21st, Disc Magazine had an article on page 10, entitled ‘Crowds like Cream’; in a not wholly successful attempt to understand the band’s phenomenal pulling power, the journalist describes "the floor around the stage" being "a mass of heaving bodies, girls jump on boys backs, boys edge forwards craning their necks." "What’s the great attraction?" "They sing, they play, that is enough."
After three months of virtually non-stop dates in the UK, (the set-list including ‘Sweet Wine’, N.S.U. & ‘Spoonful’ with new songs being added as they got written), Cream were whisked off to New York, where between March 25th & April 2nd they guested on the Murray the K show, a stellar line-up, with amongst others The Who, Wilson Pickett & Simon & Garfunkel, playing one to two songs a day, one of which was, ‘I’m So Glad.’ Such were the high jinks on this occasion that Ginger remembers Murray finding him lying under the table with a bottle of Bacardi & saying ‘How the hell is he going to be able to play?’ But he did! Whilst there they recorded ‘Strange Brew’ in Atlantic Studios (they returned in the second week of May to finish The Disraeli Gears album).
Then quick as a flash they were back touring the UK again, such as The Daily Express record Star Show at Wembley’s Empire Pool with The Troggs, The Kinks & Paul Jones; The Brighton Arts Festival, with The Who and on May 29th, Barbeque 67, Tulip Bulb Auction Hall, Spalding, with Pink Floyd, The Move, Geno Washington & The Jimi Hendrix Experience. On June 15th they recorded for the BBC TV programme Top of the Pops at Lime Grove and on the 22nd they appeared on the trendy TV show ‘Dee Time’ hosted by Simon Dee. On the 24th of the same month, Record Mirror’s page 3 led with Norman Joplin’s piece, ‘Ginger tells of Cream’s strange American trip’! In which the recording ‘Strange Brew’ is at that time labelled as ‘Witches Brew’ and the release of the recently recorded, ground-breaking Disraeli Gears LP, ‘all of it recorded in the states’ is tipped to be out in the UK ‘reasonably soon’.
On July 8th Ginger & Eric had their famous race down Ben Nevis in Scotland whilst on a photo shoot for the album. Sometime between July 15th & August 4th Ginger found time to take his newly pregnant wife Liz & daughter Nettie on a much needed holiday to Mexico City & Acapulco. But by the 4th Cream were up in Perth, Scotland, followed by a string of northern dates, before the Windsor Jazz Festival on the 13th. On 17th August Cream played at The Speakeasy in London, where they were introduced by Frank Zappa and just five days later they were wowing audiences at The Fillmore on the West Coast of America. In a brief piece in the Melody Maker of 26th August, Nick Jones predicted ‘there can be no doubt that they’re going to blow the lovers of California out of their heads’!
Soon after, journalist George Almond wrote a glowing acid-fuelled piece entitled ‘Freaking out at The Fillmore’ in which he described ‘the first number’ exploding ‘into the auditorium’ as though it were ‘a musical megaton bomb’ & ‘for nearly an hour the message of 1967 roared out, everyone interpreting it in their own way.’ A wonderful evocation not only of the unique power of Cream’s music but also the twin themes of fear of nuclear destruction & the desire to rebuild the world anew....Cream..iconic & integral to the popular culture that shaped the ideology of the day.
In fact, dear George felt moved to say that the audience on that particular night had ‘felt some message from a realm beyond normal understanding.’ Cream had come to America!
They executed a lightning tour from coast to coast culminating at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom on October 15th.
The set list for this night was:
Then by the 24th they were recording in London for BBC Radio One with John Peel, followed by more UK dates; then off to Denmark & Sweden between November 10-18th & back in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK) by the 23rd! On the 18th, record Mirror featured an article with Eric Clapton about the Disraeli Gears album, in which LP sleeve photographer Robert Whitaker gets mis-named Roger Whittaker (a very conservative UK singer!). On the 26th they recorded a show for BBC TV at London’s Lime grove Studios & this is when Ginger od’d on heroin; a story he tells in ‘Hellraiser’.
The Melody Maker of December 2nd reported ‘Ginger Baker Collapses – Doctors Suspect Ulcer.’ This caused Stigwood to make a few cancellations, but nevertheless, Ginger was back recording with Cream for Radio One again on December 3rd, followed by more UK dates, & ended up playing a debs ball in Chicago USA on 20th December, his daughter Nettie’s 6th Birthday. Cream’s last date of 1967 was on the 23rd December back at The Grande Ballroom in Detroit, after which they rushed home to spend Christmas with their families, before it started all over again in 1968.