All language subtitles for CREAM - Strange Brew - Documentary - (1991) -Eng

We was out at Stanford University one
night and they was out at Filmore West

and we got a chance to get together,
and what a group.

Jesus Christ, I knew I had
a lot to learn when l saw them play.

Regards to what Eric said about me,

I think they were
one of the greatest three-piece groups.

My first time hearing Cream
was in about 1967,

about the same time I heard
Jimi Hendrix, l was living in Virginia,

near Newport News.

I heard the aIbum DisraeIi Gears, and
l heard that before l heard Fresh Cream

and I went back
and l found Fresh Cream.

It was a whoIe different
kind of music for me.

You know, just Iike Jimi Hendrix's music
was different, it was strange,

but what I Iiked about it was that there
was a lot of blues involved in the music.

I thought it was cooI, Jack Bruce
and his wailing vocals, that was great,

and nobody eIse was
playing bass like that at that time.

Hendrix and us basicaIIy had created
this very large audience

of peopIe who were turned on
to instrumental, vocal, loud music,

rock'n'roII, I guess, with bIues in it.

First time I heard them was on the radio,
l think it was Sunshine Of Your Love.

Being a drummer,

just Iistening to how unique at that time
the drumming was, cos it blew me away.

lt was simple but yet it was complicated.

But more importantly it had feel to it.

RoIIing Stone wrote an articIe
in l think 1967 or '68,

and it was ''WiII Cream
stand the test of time?''

lt did, and it will, l think.

It was reaIIy something
extraordinarily good

that happened, musically.

It was one of the earIy heavy metaI
bands, probably, without knowing it.

Because when they...
when we disbanded Cream

and they weren't around any more,

Led ZeppeIin fiIIed the void, and became
the first official heavy metal band.

So maybe Cream was
the forerunner of that.

It was an exciting thing
to hear them playing together

and you could see the possibilities

and it didn't take Iong
before it gelled together

and they found the things that did work
and didn't work and took off from there.

From that point on, it was an extremeIy
exciting thing, as everybody knows.

Everybody was
such a close-knit musical community,

everybody had to Iive in London
if you wanted to work.

I'd been so famiIiar with Jack's pIaying
right from the very start

when he was with
Alexis Korner's Blues lncorporated,

and a coupIe of years before that
when he was on the jazz circuit

pIaying upright bass with Ginger...
Ginger and Graham Bond.

So I was...
l'd heard Jack Bruce for years,

so I was famiIiar with him
as a person and as a player.

l'd played with Ginger for a long time,

we were kind of a far-out
free jazz rhythm section.

We used to pIay
places like the Flamingo.

It was kind of Ornette CoIeman
kind of free jazz, really.

But we aIso... Then we had
the R&B thing with Graham.

There was some festivaI
that the Yardbirds were playing at.

We aII sat in.
Eric... That's the first time l met Eric.

He played with the Yardbirds,

we were aII on the same circuit
of pubs and clubs,

and probabIy about a year before
he joined me and left the Yardbirds.

He wasn't that remarkable.

But obviousIy he was
the only one you'd look for

if you were gonna hear the Yardbirds
at that time and if you were a blues lover.

But it was remarkabIe reaIIy
how quickly Eric progressed

and that was probabIy because
he had no one to play with

so he put a Iot of time in
listening to records

and getting his foundations right.

When Eric Ieft the Yardbirds it was great,
cos he didn't really live anywhere.

l had a spare room at my house

and that gave him free access to my
huge - at that time - record collection

which was a pretty hefty blues archive.

So he feIt right at home
in more ways than one.

We did Iisten to so many records
together and get excited about them

and they found their way
into the repertoire.

I especiaIIy Iiked
the blues material that he did,

like the live album that came out

with Crossroads on it and Spoonful.

Those were songs that I had to spend
a whole lot of time in my bedroom

Iistening to what was going on.
Those were great numbers.

So l got fed up with Graham,

Graham was going in the opposite
direction to what l was going.

I'd been running the band
for about three years

and I decided that I wanted to get
my own band together.

The first person that came to mind
was Clapton.

So I turned up in Oxford,
where Eric was playing with John Mayall.

It was in a big haII...

Eric saw me in the dressing room,
l went in the interval,

and he said, ''Oh, man, you gotta sit in.''

So l said, ''Yeah, l'd love to.'' So...

Then we... Everybody stood up
and bang, it happened, immediately,

it really changed the whole gig.

So after their gig, l said to Eric,

''I'm getting a band together,
would you like to join the band?''

And he said yeah straightaway.

Eric said, ''What about a bass player?''

And l said, ''Hmm...''

He said, ''What about Jack?''

Ginger fired me
from the Graham Bond band

but I refused
because he wasn't the band leader.

Jack and l had had several altercations

during the Graham Bond days.

l went, ''l really don't know

''but you're right,
he's a fucking good bass player.''

l said, ''l dunno, l'll go and see him.''

So next day l went round to Jack's flat

and I haven't seen Jack now
for about six months.

I knocked on the door
and there was Jack,

and he was surprised to see me as well.

We sat down and had a cup of tea

and I toId him what was going on,
like seeing Eric,

everything that was happening,

and did he wanna come with us?

And he said yeah, and that was it.

It was sort of Iike,
let bygones be bygones sort of thing.

The first time we pIayed
was in Ginger's house,

a IittIe semidetached house in Neasden

It was Iike, out the back was the WeIsh
Harp, an artificial lake, a reservoir,

and the kids all used to play over there.

lt was like fields all around it.

And we're pIaying
and it's really happening

and we Iooked out the back - you couId
see out through the French windows -

and up on the hiII above
was just a pile of young kids,

but all dancing, freaking out,

they'd come
from all over the Welsh Harp,

they'd heard us and they were digging it.

And that was great, it happened,
it was magic immediately.

Hanging out, that's... Bands start
as a result naturally when guys hang out.

You get musicians that Iike one another
and hang out, they'll become a band.

Yeah, it was pretty instantaneous,
there was something there.

Ginger and myseIf had pIayed a Iot
over the years before,

you know, jazz things,
Alexis and Graham.

With Graham Bond we pIayed
320 or 330 gigs a year.

lt saves you practising.

And then the combination of Eric's,
at the time, very pure blues playing

and our kind of pushing him
beyond what he thought his limits were.

lt was very exciting.

The thing about Cream,
the interesting thing

was the freedom that there was,

that any of the instruments couId be
the lead instrument on stage,

or even on record, but mainly on stage.

At any time, the drums couId be pIaying
the melody, or the guitar,

or the bass, or the voices, or whatever.

When you pIay and you get
into that sort of situation,

it's as if something else takes over,

you're not conscious of playing...

but you're Iistening to this
fantastic sound that you're a part of.

Your part is just happening.

lt's just happening, it's like total freedom.

You can practise forever
and get the most amazing technique

and say nothing with it at all.

If you haven't got...
lt's a gift that some people have,

and we three had it in abundance.

And it so happened
that for that period of time

that thing, reaIIy working together, just...
we couldn't help but do.

They did start off
with a lot of Eric's input

and that wouId've showed up
in all the blues things

that maybe Jack and Ginger
weren't quite as familiar with.

Then the improvisationaI thing,
that's a jazz quality,

and that's totaIIy where Ginger and Jack
came from, a jazz background,

so that was their forte.

And Eric, of course, was never pIaying
the same any night in the Bluesbreakers.

None of my musicians ever do, because
blues is part of jazz and we improvise.

lt's never the same any night in a row.

But the free-form aspect of it,

where you abandon the changes
or appear to abandon the changes,

that's a jazz device and that was
right up the alley of Jack and Ginger.

lt's interplay between the musicians.

lf they were talking

then, without their voice, if they were
talking through their instrument,

then that's what you're hearing.

My guitar voice is my voice,

and what I sing
is what l can't do on the guitar.

When you're singing, there are words,

there's a IyricaI content you put across
that you're not doing with a guitar.

The guitar is a universal language.

What I've aIways Iiked
about Eric's guitar playing

is the fact that he talks to you.

His guitar playing is conversational.

And he takes his time.

l guess hence the name Slowhand.

He was born with a gift and...

and just had a direction.

l don't think l've ever...

untiI Iater on in my Iife,
accepted it as a gift,

cos that's...that takes a bit of...

retrospect, you know,

to Iook back and reaIise
that it wasn't just a coincidence

that you happened to be a guitar player.

But at the time I wanted to do it because
l liked the music, l liked that style,

and it seemed to me a IittIe bit strange
that l was the only one that did.

At the time that I started pIaying,
most guitar players were trying to be...

follow other white players.

I was much more...very raciaI about it,
l wanted to be like a black guitar player

and that, to me, it's a bit of a strange
situation. l've never figured that out.

It was, er...between the age
of 16, 1 7 to 20, 21

that I put aII of my heart
and learning into it.

l forgo... l forwent everything else.

l didn't...

go out, go drinking or anything,

I just stayed at home and Iearned aImost
24 hours a day from listening to records.

But I was deadIy serious
about what l wanted to be.

As I rock the pedaI,
you can hear it through the amplifier,

it takes bass off and puts trebIe on,
like that.

So the voIume isn't going down
very much

but the tone is going wah-wah.

That's probabIy the most important
part of it, being serious about it,

or finding a kind of music that you like.

And not just have it to be pop music
or be popular,

your motive has got to be right,

to be serious about being a certain kind
of musician and then fulfilling that.

AII these runs are put together
from old phrases l first started on, like...

And now they're just aII messed up with
other things l learned like that, which is...

I received a phone caII
from Jack and Ginger...

- I didn't have a phone.
- Well, it was a call from the studio,

saying, ''We've written this song
and we need a lyric for it,

''would you like to come and have a go?''

They both worked with me as...
backing my poetry and music situation.

Jack did one or two gigs with me Iater
but also Ginger worked with me...

- We did gigs with you?
- Yeah, a couple of jazz and poetry gigs

- on string bass, remember?
- Yeah.

At the Jeanette Cochrane Theatre
you did one.

But I think reaIIy you were trying to work
with Ginger, initially.

We did, to start with, Ginger pIayed
on that big concert we did in '61 ...

- No, I mean, to do with Cream songs.
- Well, Ginger knew me better.

- At the beginning you started to work...
- Yeah.

- ..but you didn't hit it off.
- No, that's right. And...

So l got you because you didn't hit it off.

You got the backlash, yeah.

I came out of the so-caIIed
Beat Generation,

I came out of Kerouac
and Ginsberg and all those people.

But at the same time,
the music that l liked

probabIy had more infIuence on me
than they did,

Iike bIues things, Robert Johnson,
T-Bone Walker, people like that,

the Iyrics of those things probabIy had
more influence on me than other poetry.

The process of writing
was very much the music first

and then Pete and myseIf working,
hammering out the images.

So he's very...he's very kind of prolific.

l felt that what l was writing was...

I've aIways feIt this,
in the best things that we wrote,

I feIt that I was just transIating the music
into words, it was there already.

He wouId have
half a dozen ideas a minute,

and I wouId say,
''No, l don't like that one,''

just from the point of view of singing,
some things sing better than others.

l didn't care what it meant, really.

- As Iong as it feIt good.
- lf it felt good then it would work.

One funny story is
the Sunshine Of Your Love story, really,

because, er...

we were sitting there
in Bracknell Gardens

and we...it was, Iike, five in the morning,
we'd been writing for hours and hours

and we were reaIIy getting fed up
with each other as well.

Then suddenIy Jack in desperation
grabbed his double bass - this is true -

he grabbed his old double bass...

and said, ''What about this?''

and played this riff, and l went,

Iooked out the window and it's getting
light so l said, ''lt's getting near dawn...''

I got to know Jimi very weII
and we became very close friends.

Jimi, on a TV show once, stopped
and went into playing Sunshine.

He really dug Cream, very much, yeah.

We'd Iike to stop pIaying this rubbish
and dedicate a song to the Cream,

regardIess of what kind of group
they might be,

we'd Iike to dedicate to Eric CIapton,
Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce.

I was very, very proud
to be a friend of Jimi Hendrix.

He was very... He encouraged me a lot.

I think he is not with us
because he was...

because nobody cared
about him enough.

And I think nobody cared enough
about us then either.

Strange Brew was Hey Lordy Mama,
a blues thing that Eric did.

There was a guy in the studio
called Felix Pappalardi

and we didn't know him.

There was Tom Dowd and Arif Mardin,
Ahmet Ertegun

and this guy, FeIix PappaIardi,
who none of us knew.

They introduced him to us, and he said,

''That track you've just done, wouId you
mind if l took it home, took the vocal off

''and put a song on top?''

And we said, ''No, man, go for it.''

He came back next day
with Strange Brew.

That was it, we were...you know, yeah.

He wanted to produce a record
and we said, ''Yeah, man, go for it,''

and he became our producer.

He was a great guy to work with.

Listen, a band's as good
as its drummer.

A mediocre band with
a mediocre drummer's mediocre, right?

A mediocre band with a good drummer
becomes a good band.

A reaIIy good band with a good drummer
becomes a super band.

The thing that I got from Ginger
was that drums are a musical instrument.

There's more than just the hits,

there are nuances, there are dynamics,
there are colours.

You've got so many sounds
on a drum kit,

not just boom-bash, boom-bash.

You've got so many different sounds on
a drum kit, depending on how you hit it,

where you hit it, you know.

And it's using these sounds
in the right place

that makes the music better.

This is what Baby Dodds did
and what Max Roach does,

what EIvin does, what Art BIakey did,
what everybody does.

You make the other guys sound good.

You make the other guys sound good,
that's your gig.

The interpIay between the band

infIuenced every band
that was happening,

incIuding VaniIIa Fudge,
including probably Hendrix's bands.

We used to play with all those guys.

And it was, Iike, you know,
they were, like, it.

The trio, everybody was a superstar.

Ginger did a phenomenal job.

There were peopIe who may have pIayed
double bass before

but nobody pIayed 'em
as a musical, separate part

the way Ginger Baker did.

What he pIayed on the kick drums was...
were unique patterns

that shifted across
what he was doing over the top.

Other people played double kick drum

but it was usuaIIy just because one foot
wasn't fast enough, to speed things up.

l thought that was just one more step.

He reaIIy now had four Iimbs
to express two levels of playing.

lt blew me away.

I think one of the greatest things
l ever heard on drums

was Toad.

l'd never heard anything as fluid before.

ln drums, you have one hit at a time,

it's a very percussive,
short duration note

yet somehow everything kind of fIowed
and it rolled.

l think it was in Texas on the...

big tour, the '68 tour,

where Eric just said,
''Man, l've had enough.''

And l said, ''Yeah, man, so have l.''

And that was it, the end of the gig.

We toId Stigwood, I don't know
whether he believed it or what.

We did what we set out to do and
l think we couldn't have done any more.

I think it Iasted
just the right length of time

to make the little statement that we had.

I never thought that I wouId
be in a commercially successful band,

I didn't set out to do that in my Iife,
it just happened that way.

I'm very gIad that it did, though.
lt was a great experience.

I didn't reaIIy ever wanna be
tied down to a band.

The minute it started to get too...

too much like a prison,

or too routine, then l'd wanna get out.

Just the gypsy side of me,
just moving on.

lt was...

lt was just the end of it.

We did the goodbye Cream concert
at the Albert Hall,

and we did the Goodbye aIbum
which was some of that tour live

and we did three tracks in LA.

And that was it, yeah.