Goodbye

This album was released after the band had already split.
Three great live tracks and three great studio tracks.
I'm So Glad, Politician and Sitting On Top of the World are the live cuts and splendid they are too. Great trio interplay with guitar and bass slightly better recorded than Gingers drums. Jack's tonsils get some work out.
Badge is Eric Clapton's studio track and is a really fine song with some fine pumping bass from Jack behind Eric's singing.
Doing That Scrapyard Thing is an off the wall belter from Jack Bruce with completely silly lyrics and a cheeky vocal performance.
What A Bringdown penned by Ginger Baker is a winner too. The album sleeve credits Ginger with vocals but it sounds like Eric to me? Jack wails the loud bits. Its a very percussive track as one would expect. Fine work from Jack on piano and organ.
The fourth of four fantastic Cream recordings.
At their best one of the most exciting groups ever. Cream used improvisation more than any other group outside of jazz. I guess thats why most so called rock journalists dont like them now. They were far too adventurous and unpredictable. Not for them the never ending cliches of the so called superstar groups who went on for years playing the same stuff year in and year out.

Cream's studio music falls, at first sight, into three periods. The first ('Fresh Cream') was when the band were trying, with varying degress of success, to establish their sound. The second was the psychedelic 'Disraeli' one, when they gained their commercial success (the earlier 'Fresh Cream' material didn't sell very well). The third was the progressive material, represented by 'White Room' and so on. Then the band split, and this 'posthumous' recording was rather ignored by record buyers at the time, though a fair number of keen Cream fans bought it.

In my opinion, 'Goodbye' suggests that the band made a really big mistake in splitting when they did. There are some truly great tracks on here, easily as good as anything on their other albums, and in several cases considerably better. In some ways it represents a fourth type of Cream music, totally proficient technically, with great songwriting that had left the Blues way behind and was taking them far beyond what they'd already achieved on their earlier albums. 'Badge' is just one such example.

Personally, I think that Jack, Ginger and Eric all went downhill after this album. Blind Faith led nowhere; the Baker Gurvitz Army were interesting, but perhaps the earlier Gun were better; Jack sacrificed sheer excitement for jazz and complexity; Ginger headed into jazz, but it's a very challenging style in which few can be true masters; and Eric became very popular, but with his amplifier turned down and many fans longing for blistering 'Bluesbreaker' type material that never truly re-materialised.

Creativity often relies on tension, and there was tension a plenty in Cream, thanks to Bruce and Baker's arguments and fistfights when they were in the Graham Bond Organisation. Maybe this album is great because those tensions helped drive the creative process, and when Bruce and Baker went their separate ways, the energy was somehow lost. In some ways this album reminds me of Abbey Road; both the Beatles and Cream were supposedly finished, but both their final albums were stunningly good. How many other artists have gone out like that? None that I can think of. One can't imagine Cream going all through the Seventies banging out 'Sunshine of your love' and so on, so maybe it was time to say goodbye. But the entire heavy metal/hard rock scene derives, in large part, from Cream, even if people don't want to admit it. So in that sense, Cream might have found continued success. We'll never know. At least they never made a bad album, and this one is as good as any. If they had to call it a day, this was the best way to bow out.

Simply one of the greatest rock albums ever released. Or, if you like, three of the greatest live tracks ever released with 3 studio tracks added on but not 'an album'. Who cares? The only thing wrong with this CD is that it doesn't contain a fourth live track instead of, or in addition to, the three short studio tracks. With CD allowing much more space than the original LP it's a disgrace that Polydor haven't rectified this. With one or two extra live tracks it would have the makings of what discophiles like to think of as an 'album' and people compiling recommended discographies might stop moaning about it being a(n)(arbitrary) hodge podge and completely forgetting to rate it primarily on the quality of the music rather than as some sort of meaningful, tidy or satisfying arrangement of tracks. This 'record' has been sadly undervalued ever since it's release simply because it is neither a studio album nor a live album although there was an obvious reason for this as there were 3 studio tracks left over after Cream broke up. The three very well chosen live numbers which were added used up all the remaining space on the vinyl format. What more could people want?
But a friendly warning, this is not for the musically fainthearted. These live tracks need to be given total concentrated attention, the sort of attention you would give to a Beethoven quartet or trio, but far more 'physical'. Quite apart from this though, music of this intensity is not for everyone and there is nothing to be done about that. But I suppose there is always the much tamer 'Wheels of Fire' studio album which has two of these numbers for those who want something less demanding - primarily less demanding in terms of passion; the concentration is what is necessary to produce it.

For those who do appreciate this album there is unfortunately only one other disc to match it. That is the live 'Wheels Of Fire' disc with the very famous 'Crossroads' and the 16min live version of 'Spoonful'. This live 'Spoonful' is I think probably the greatest achievement of rock music so far, both on account of Bruce's vocal performance and the superbly maintained tension and architecture of the long middle section. I have heard quite a few of their live Spoonfuls but this one is undoubtedly the best.
However, it is also worth knowing that there are at least 2 very fine live performances on 'Live Cream Vol.2' ( Sunshine Of Your Love and Politician) and that there is a longer and better version of N.S.U. to be found (only)as part of the 4disc set 'Those Were The Days' which also contains better stereo balanced mixes of the less satisfactory ones on both 'Live Cream Vols.1 and 2'.
But the stereo mixes of these three tracks are are as good as they can be, and 'I'm So Glad' in particular is far better than the mix in the box-set. The other mix of 'Glad' is only useful if you want to study exactly what Clapton is playing since the lead guitar is brought much further forward. Unfortunately this destroys the competitive balance with the bass and the performance ends up being much less exciting than it is on this original album.