I should add at this point that, as you may have guessed, I am not now and have never been a Cream fan. Basically, I can listen to the live Wheels of Fire version of "Crossroads" and the exquisitely Beatle-esque "Badge" (from their final album) and that's just about it.
Yeah, yeah, I know they're great and historically important blah blah blah but the insurmountable problem for me, which I can/could never get past, is Jack Bruce's melodramatically florid over-singing.
Which, as you can hear so well in the above, sounds exactly like the Cantor at my Bar Mitzvah. And in a rock context, that just makes me laugh, which obviously is not the reaction the band was going for.
Hey -- it's a Jewish thing. You wouldn't understand.
I should add as a footnote that the jingle tune in question is credited to Clapton/Bruce/Baker, which means they wrote the immortal line "the beer you reach for first/when you want to quench your thirst" all by themselves.
I.e. without the assistnce of their usual collaborator/lyricist "Sunshine of Your Love" auteur Pete Brown. And good for them.
[h/t Jai Guru Dave]
A lot of supposedly counterculture bands did commercials. The Airplane did a Levis' jeans jingle. I used to have a bootleg of about 20 different 60s bands doing Coke commercials.
ReplyDelete*shrug* Its a living.
I drank Falstaff back in the day. Ugh.
ReplyDelete"the insurmountable problem for me, which I can/could never get past, is Jack Bruce's melodramatically florid over-singing"
ReplyDeleteYou've got that right, Steve. Jack was an excellent bass player, but he seemed to believe the world needed to hear him sing. This is also common with lead guitarists that leave bands to go solo...
- Paul in DK
The first Cream album was good, paving the way for the heavy blues-rock that came after. No Cream no Led Zeppelin. But I'm with you on Jack Bruce. And his solo stuff is unlistenable. "Crossroads" is my ultimate air-guitar number - the first time I heard it my hands began to flutter and in the 66 years since it happens every single time it plays. But what makes the track is Baker's drumming, each chorus different (and hotter) than the last.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah. Fall-Flat beer. When it was sale at the BX for about $.75 a case, we were all for it. Fall-Flat and In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida on constant rotation.
ReplyDeleteAnd Clapton left the Yarcbirds to be a "blues purist". That lasted long enough to tell Mayall hello-goodbye and go looking for flowery shirts and a new hair stylist.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like Reingold didn't feel threatened enough to hire Jimi. 'Scuse me, while I quaff this brew!
ReplyDelete