Cream: Wheels of Fire (2LP) [POLYDOR]

Why you'll love it

This 180g 2LP set comes in a gatefold with Martin Sharp's psychedelic artwork. Wheels of Fire went to No. 1 in the US, Canada and Australia and became the world's first platinum-selling double album.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 180g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Most bands make a studio album or a live album. Cream, never ones for half measures, made both at once. Producer Felix Pappalardi worked on the studio disc in bursts over nearly a year, at IBC in London and Atlantic in New York with engineer Tom Dowd, then shipped a mobile studio to San Francisco to tape the band at the Fillmore and Winterland in March 1968.

The studio half is Cream at their most adventurous, adding viola, cello, calliope and glockenspiel. "White Room" grew from an eight-page Pete Brown poem, "Politician" came together in a single BBC session, Eric Clapton picks the blues covers "Sitting on Top of the World" and "Born Under a Bad Sign," and Ginger Baker co-wrote three songs with jazz pianist Mike Taylor. Live, Clapton tears through "Crossroads" and "Spoonful," Jack Bruce blows harmonica on "Traintime," and Baker takes "Toad" for a long, thunderous walk.

Martin Sharp's sleeve turns from silver-grey outside to Day-Glo inside, with photography by Jim Marshall, and it remains one of the great psychedelic gatefolds to open out on the living room floor. Baker's drum solo on "Toad" has been teaching young drummers humility since 1968.

Also at Kops: more Cream on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Polydor (cat# 535 484-4), a reissue of the 1968 album.