Today, we’ll be celebrating the groundbreaking Disraeli Gears released fifty-seven years ago on November 2. Disraeli Gears, Cream’s sophomore album, was miles ahead of their debut. Disraeli Gears was an essential ingredient, along with music of The Beatles, Airplane, Jimi, Floyd, and The Doors, of the Summer of Love.
It is almost incomprehensible how much music changed/progressed during 1967. Consider: the number one song for the year only two years before was Wooly Bully by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. Albums like Disraeli Gears didn’t so much open new doors as blow them off their hinges. Sunshine of Your Love is, of course, a Cream classic with Clapton perfecting what he called his “Women Tone” from his ‘64 SG played through an early model Marshall amp. It still resonates with the power and majesty that it held more than half a century ago. When you think about the best known riffs ever, Sunshine of Your Love is up there with Smoke On the Water, Johnny B. Goode, and (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.
Next you have one of the earliest, and best, songs to combine heavy blues and psychedelia, Tales of Brave Ulysses. Another song that still sounds as fresh today as it did six decades ago. Strange Brew, SWLABR and We’re Going Wrong are three more powerhouse songs.
The combination of the classically trained Jack Bruce with Clapton at the peak of his powers would have been enough to make all these songs classics. But Ginger Baker’s playing is the special sauce that propels these songs to their peak. It is not an overstatement to say that Ginger invented modern rock drumming on this album because, before Disraeli Gears, rock drummers were only responsible for the beat. Baker developed a style of playing drums as a lead instrument that actually carried the melody.
The pinnacle of the album for me is a deep track, Dance the Night Away. Eric plays a gorgeous twelve string riff while Eric and Jack’s beautiful harmonized vocals take you to a different plane. It’s a long, long way from Wooly Bully. And to think that the entire album only took three and one-half days to record.
Mind-blowing on multiple levels.
