Cream - Wheels of Fire
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Music CD Cover
Artist: CreamEdition: Music CD
Format: Live, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1998-04-07
Music Label: Polydor / Umgd
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- In The Studio: White Room
- In The Studio: Sitting On The Top Of The World
- In The Studio: Passing The Time
- In The Studio: As You Said
- In The Studio: Pressed Rat And Warthog
- In The Studio: Politician
- In The Studio: Those Were The Days
- In The Studio: Born Under A Bad Sign
- In The Studio: Deserted Cities Of The Heart
- Live At The Fillmore: Crossroads
- Live At The Fillmore: Spoonful
- Live At The Fillmore: Traintime
- Live At The Fillmore: Toad
Free Music Notes for Wheels of Fire
Free Music Review: For the Better Moments Worth the Price
Hit: 3 Stars
The studio material veers from the inspired ("White Room," never mind that Jack Bruce and Pete Brown seemed to play a kind of see-and-raise on Eric Clapton's earlier "Tales of Brave Ulysses," though Clapton unfurls one of the finest rounds of controlled wah-wah fills and solos of its time; "Sitting on Top of the World," which sounds first too reverent until Clapton spins a spellbinding solo and Bruce supports him with a neatly climbing bass line; "Born Under a Bad Sign," in which Ginger Baker's Latinesque polyrhythm competes neatly with Clapton's stinging Albert King-like lines; "Those Were The Days," maybe the second-best song Baker wrote for the trio) to the modest ("Deserted Cities of the Heart," "Politician"), to the mundane. ("As You Said," which sounds still as though it were composed and executed on some particularly skittery controlled substances, though the cello lines save it from total disaster.)
The live recordings veer from the transcendent ("Crossroads") to the well-intentioned ("Spoonful," which tends to lag in a few places, in spite of several bursts of what made Cream so formidable as a freewheeling, improvisational concert unit), to the dubious (it's still hard to know whether "Traintime"---a superior take has since emerged on the BBC sessions---is inspired or exhausted, though the idea of chugging Bruce's harmonica to Baker's snare and hi-hat was a welcome relief, and the vocal is probably his most impassioned on the set), and to a combination of the three. ("Toad" was always more impressive for Baker's drumming---as colouristic as you'll find in rock of any era, never mind how many caterwauling inferiors it inadvertently inspired, than for its basic music bookends, the last of which you can barely hear through the mix under the crowd sound, anyway.)
As a whole, "Wheels of Fire" isn't quite the master blend of eclectic blues and pop adventurism "Disraeli Gears" was, and you wouldn't lose a thing if you skipped "Passing the Time" or "As You Said" (both way better as ideas than as executed songs). But in the best moments Cream lives up to the better sides of its reputation. Maybe the sense that they were about to decide on packing it in pervades too greatly, but for the better moments it's still worth the price.
(As an historical note: "Wheels of Fire" was the first double-LP set to be awarded a gold record, an award presented to Cream before they kicked off the Madison Square Garden appearance that concluded their 1968 farewell tour.)
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