Cream: Disraeli Gears [BACK TO BLACK/POLYDOR]

Why you'll love it

This Back to Black reissue is pressed on 180g vinyl with the stereo mix. Disraeli Gears holds two of Cream's best-known singles, "Strange Brew" and "Sunshine of Your Love."

This edition

• Back to Black series
• 180g vinyl
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Some albums take years. Disraeli Gears took three and a half days, because that's how long Cream had before their American visas ran out. Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker piled into Atlantic Studios in New York in May 1967 with producer Felix Pappalardi and engineer Tom Dowd, and laid down one or two takes of each backing track with the clock ticking.

Pappalardi earned his keep straight away: he took a blues cover called "Lawdy Mama," wrote new lyrics with his wife Gail Collins, and turned it into "Strange Brew." "Sunshine of Your Love" rides one of the most famous riffs in rock; Ahmet Ertegun wasn't sure about it until Booker T. Jones and Otis Redding both told him they loved it. "Tales of Brave Ulysses" and "SWLABR" are full-blown psychedelia, "Outside Woman Blues" keeps the blues flame lit, and the party noise on "Take It Back" comes from friends who dropped by the sessions.

It's the record where blues-rock put on a paisley shirt and never quite took it off. The title came from a roadie mangling the words "derailleur gears," and the band liked it so much they kept it, which is how most good things get named in this shop as well.

Also at Kops: more Cream on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Polydor (cat# 535 484-3), a reissue of the 1967 album.